Heirs of the Decline
by greyrondo
Summary: After a battle marked with treachery and loss, Zidane and Kuja have put trust in their memories to navigate lies and unwanted alliances. In order to survive, they'll need to decide what those memories are worth - and discover why the battle itself is so determined to keep the two of them turned against each other.
1. Chapter 1

Awhile ago, I wrote a story about World B, and the worlds that might have laid beyond. Every so often it wanted to be rewritten, which is where this started off. But this isn't the rewrite of a story about World B and beyond.

This is a story about going home.

I'll be uploading this story in three sections, nine chapters each, a few months apart.

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy IX and Dissidia are the property of Square Enix. The people who came together to make these characters and their worlds made their fans a home to which they will always return.

 **CHAPTER ONE**

I was alone in a strange world. Of all things, that was what made me long for home. No matter how many of the same years I wasted away here, this world would never be anything but strange. To call it anything else would be to call it 'home', and that would be an insult to the world that made me feel like a stranger since I was a child.

The waves sighed ragged at the end of the day. The sun set sanguine on the horizon. One of my fondest childhood memories looked just like it. Except then, it was night. The clouds were smoke from the fires swallowing a thousand souls. The sun was a gorged and gloating eye.

But enough about the man who only now wanted me to call him 'Father'.

I looked over my shoulder once, twice. A panicked awareness I've never indulged before. To my relief, I left no footprints. While this world was being reborn, it was also timeless. This was just one of a thousand peculiarities.

Still, the sand muttered under the press of my heels. The world's last dying gasps mingled with its first breaths in the wind skating over the grass. The sound warned me, hushed me.

The blood-red sunlight and the scent of stone combating the briny salt on the wind told me I'd missed the last thunderstorm. I really could have used the rain. I wanted to feel as clean and untouched as the rest of this forsaken world.

Eventually the familiar hue sank below the horizon. It was replaced by bare moonlight for a bare night. A wanting white, only a little paler than my skin. In its own time, the gentle rose of dawn blossomed.

Where did all the hours go? I must have stopped walking at some point. My feet hurt, but every part of me hurt. The fading moonlight struck a puddle of rainwater in front of me and I saw myself as clearly as if I were staring into a mirror.

For a moment, I considered tearing everything off: ripped jacket, unbuckled armor, the belts barely hanging off my hips, the drape of white askance the silver-furred tail I begrudgingly claimed as part of me. But then I would be as naked as the day I was brought into being, as naked as the world being summoned forth.

No. I needed my clothes. I chose them myself. They were all I had left.

My red-lacquered fingertips skimmed over my body. A seam stitched itself here, blood worked itself out of white there. I delicately touched my cheekbone and winced. A breath of magic, then I felt nothing. Once again, I was flawless.

A blade of grass stirred behind me. I flinched.

No one there. Just the sound of a brave new world. My tails fled under my skirt and I went back to considering my appearance. If nothing else, I could always count on my reflection: my porcelain doll's skin, the unruly feathers I embraced years ago.

I added the crimson line to my eyes myself, of course. Why not accent that telling blue gaze. Hardly anybody knew what it meant, the word that whispered in my blood: Genome.

Objectively, my body was stunning. Statuesque, even, in how precisely it represented Terra's grotesque and deathly idols. It failed to hold my soul intact with the same ferocity I expected of it, but it was mine, and it was so beautiful.

Then there was my tail. This final brand reminded me I had that senile old man to thank for the pathetic husk of a life I now clung to, despite his best attempts to grind me into dust under his boot.

Yes, I could always count on my reflection to be consistent. No matter how exquisite, I always appreciated the humor in how much I now hated it.

I upheld and exceeded every definition of a narcissist. I had the face of an angel. It was so heartbreakingly captivating that people had this obsession with viewing me as they wanted me to be, rather than who I was. I truly was a breathtaking mistake.

My sweet, stupid little brother once thought that somewhere, far, far down, I had a heart worthy of a champion of Cosmos. I just needed someone who understood me. He was aching to volunteer.

He sincerely believed I had some inner wound eating away at a great wellspring of light inside me. He believed that inner wound had a name: Garland.

Of course. I had no business claiming sole responsibility for my crimes. That's why I was so tragic; it wasn't my fault. It was all on our father: my peacock's pride, my inability to trust people and accept kindness, all of it springing from some deep, buried anxiety of rejection, misplaced emotional hurt, and a lifetime of loneliness.

I didn't even deserve the comeuppance my actions might have once brought upon my head. Even I had to admit that in this world, where balance was the ultimate and inescapable law, I'd spent too long trying to outrun karma.

Zidane just knew I didn't really want to seize this awful world and bring it to its knees. I didn't really want to make it rue its very existence from now until eternity do us part.

But he knew better now. And so did I.

This barren husk didn't even merit my attention. If I tore back the veil—if I followed the spirit of this conflict back to the beginning—I wouldn't find a Crystal. I would find nothing but a pale wanting echo of a living, beloved world.

What was an Angel of Death to do with a world hardly alive in the first place? How could I be expected to reap the souls of the remaining few when they hadn't yet suffered enough to give this world a soul of its own?

No more would this world skulk in the shadow cast by the dragon Shinryu's dance with Cosmos and Chaos. It was going to breathe the true pulse of life. Its inhabitants would buckle under the weight of anguish and despair.

By the time I was done, both sides would be begging for permission to lay down their weapons forever. I would do what no recognized Warrior of Cosmos has ever been able to accomplish: I would bring peace to this world.

I would cast the shadow of death. It would be my final reaping.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy IX and Dissidia are the property of Square Enix. The people who came together to make these characters and their worlds made their fans a home to which they will always return.

 **CHAPTER TWO**

The line was drawn in the sand: the selfless and brave to the south, the cunning and twisted to the north. Tidy and efficient. You'd think we'd done this before.

The forces of Chaos began their machinations while my own flourished and then dissipated into the air, like mist in the morning sun.

I left so little room for trust at the end of the last cycle, but moving forward, my alliances must be solid as stone. I refused to pretend I had lost my memories again. My comrades' true colors would be too much to endure. And I refused to ask for forgiveness, because I did not want it. In the end, they'd be begging me for mine.

Such a sweet sound, but it's a song I would never hear if I dragged my heels like this. They would be wonder where I'd been, if I was too ashamed to show my face, if I'd been imprisoned within the Rift for my insolence.

I was left in peace for days, but sadly, that peace didn't last. Perhaps I died in that damned tree and Gaia exiled my soul to this imaginative penance so I wouldn't poison the well.

I heard the scuff of sand under light boots. It's a particular footstep I'd heard many times before.

As it was on Terra, so it is here in Hell. Once again, Zidane's mere presence sparked a resentful fire that quickly caught in my chest.

"You're too late, moron," I snapped. I turned around and took a step forward.

The shore disappeared and the last wave brought in a dark blue scrap of moonscape. Night swallowed the sun.

Imagine a palace with a vast number of rooms, and each of those rooms was an entirely different place. Imagine each room possessed dozens of doors, connecting each room to a grand hall and to each other, but only sometimes connected through the same door each time.

Now imagine half the doors were invisible, were scattered throughout the middle of each room, and move d according to the inane will of the gods.

Fragments of the homes we left behind lay scattered across the earth, sometimes in the ruins of doorways leading nowhere, sometimes transient and unmarked. You stepped into one and stepped out on an entirely different continent, or wherever else the fragment happened to touch the world. A pity not one of my palaces came here with me.

"What have you done with Bartz?" demanded the angry boy with tied-back blond hair and a matching tail. Zidane gripped his blades in each hand.

Oh, brother. What have I done with Bartz? Is that all you care about?

Crackling lightning seared over my shoulder; scrawling symbols' haze danced in front of my eyes. All this time and he still just unleashed his magic and hoped for the best. No wonder Cosmos hadn't won yet.

I ducked and came up against the ground hard. I was not in the mood to play right now.

Thanks to the starlight, my hair was practically a beacon. I might as well have been sending up fireworks every time I moved: here I am, come and get me. I slipped into the shadows and drew myself close against the lunar rock.

"It's not like you to keep that mouth of yours shut, Kuja. Answer me!"

What would he know? I judged the direction of Zidane's voice and teleported blind. The echo on the cliff sent me somewhere completely different; nausea shot up from the pit of my stomach as I found my bearings.

Brittle energy attempted to shackle my feet. I traced the magic to its source and met him halfway. He was poised on a ledge, ready to strike.

"What does it matter to you?" I told him sweetly. "You're not even Bartz's real friend. You're nothing but a vessel and a voice, waiting for some semblance of a soul to be recreated by some mismatched memories. You have an inkling of who you should be, but you know that deep down, you'll never be complete."

Apparently I'd been spending too much time listening to stories about Sephiroth.

Zidane launched himself at me. Must have struck a nerve. But really, what had I done with Bartz?

I don't think I'd done anything with Bartz, now that I thought about it. I hadn't even seen Bartz since the last round.

Not that I expected either of them to go out of their way for me. That gluttonous dragon took care of that. Too bad it didn't choke.

Magic welled up in my limbs, aching to be released. I set it free and darted away before I was snared in the lovely explosion.

Or not so lovely. The starlight force blossomed anemically around him.

Disappointing. It would seem my magic wasn't where it usually was. I couldn't say why, but my incantations failed to come to my lips unhindered. I stumbled over spells more familiar to me than poetry. I couldn't keep them together in my mind. My distracted efforts manifested broken and fractured.

Why wouldn't Zidane just leave me alone? Why wouldn't everyone just leave me alone?

As he recovered, knowing hatred glinted in his bright eyes. How unlike him. Zidane wasn't capable of hating someone so much. Not unless he'd been given reason beyond a shadow of a doubt.

I changed tactics. "If you want me to confess, you'll have to wait until we've caught up. It's been such a long time," I taunted him.

He lashed out at me and then plummeted downwards. I caught him with a thin whip of blue light.

He stopped and stumbled, shook his head, disoriented. Last time he checked, he was heading for the ground with all of gravity's blessings.

Take the opportunity, idiot. Try to land one single strike on me before I got impatient and stood still.

He did. A tidal surge of power roared and sent me flying. Magic buoyed me, but I still scraped my palms on the unforgiving rock before I recovered. That was almost a respectable blow, if it didn't come from Garland's preferred Angel of Death. I had high standards.

He closed the distance and glared at me.

I stood back up without so much as a tremor. "It's unhealthy for you to bottle up your emotions like that. Tell me all about how lonely you are. Trust me, you'll feel better."

He threw his daggers aside and our fight devolved into a fight I could only have with him: unchoreographed, impulsive, ugly. There was something cathartic about the way my heartbeat rose. I forgot the years I spent cultivating and refining my magic. It flowed complete and unhindered now; he was drawing out the untamed Terran power we both shared.

"Did you do it for the attention or something?" he said. "Don't you have any friends?"

I wanted to think he'd challenged me on purpose, but that would be impossible. He died in the last cycle, I was certain of it. At this moment, he didn't even understand that by fighting me, he was going to bring back the memories he relinquished.

But he knew my name and he hated me. There was no way he could have regained that much so soon, since we hadn't so much as seen each other.

It was our first cycle all over again. He didn't even know we were brothers. The suggestion that I could ever be friends with any of the other Warriors of Chaos was downright insulting. I tackled him.

"As if I would ever trust any of them for even a second—"

"Not the Emperor? Ultimecia? What about Kefka. You like him, don't you?"

"Shut up! Or I swear I'll silence you myself and do this world a favor."

Curious, that he named those three in particular. One of his comrades must have caught him up.

It would have almost been worth letting him get to me, if I had looked into Zidane's eyes at that moment and known I'd done the same. Was he baiting me?

Just as I snapped back, his expression was softened by surprise. A heavy chain suddenly yanked my shoulders backward and threw me to the ground.

I caught my breath and propped myself up next to a pair of heavy sabatons. "Get up," Garland growled. His armor was no longer a blackened husk; a vile helmet with the horns of a demon masked his white hair and heartless cataracts. It was true that the Garland before us looked nothing like our Garland, but it was him, surely enough.

"Holy Lord God of imprisoned marionettes, the heavens and Terra are filled with thy glory," I told him. "How about I stay where I am, and you go find yourself a cliff to jump off so I don't have to help you this time?"

"I've had Golbez searching for you for days. One of my warriors wasted on you, of all things. Stop playing with your brother and come with me."

Were you feeling nostalgic, old man? That sounded like something a father would say. With as much dignity as I could muster, I drew myself to my feet. Zidane leapt to his and instinctively grabbed for his daggers, only to remember he'd thrown them out of reach.

"'Scuse me, it's rude to interrupt," Zidane said. He never learned what Garland's impatient voice sounded like, or that it wasn't lightly crossed.

Garland swiftly grasped him by the collar and threw him aside. "Know your place!"

Before Zidane got the chance to recover, Garland placed a firm hand on my shoulder and dragged me out of the blue lunar world.

My eyes stung at the transition into storm-choked sunlight. We were now beyond the boundary of Chaos' territory, much farther north. The smell of sulfur corroded the air. The earth here eternally churned and overturned itself in fire and ash, a land in flux.

He started off towards the rambling stone gate in the distance. It marked the physical memory of Chaos' shrine. I would rather be freezing in Order's Sanctuary than here.

Garland stopped and turned around to look down at me. "You'd do well to obey me with more readiness in the future."

"You mean you would have had a future if I'd obeyed you."

"I find it unsettling that I have to remind you to do what's in your best interest," he cautioned me. "Do not distance yourself from me once we're inside. Take your place on my right. And for the gods' sake, do not disrespect me."

It had been a long time since he'd commanded me to accept that honor. My every nerve seized up at the thought. I folded my arms across my chest. It wouldn't happen again. I wouldn't allow it.

"So if I stand by your side and put on a smile, everyone's bound to forget what happened? Even I'm not that good. This is a joke. "

"This 'joke' will save your life," he growled. "If you don't think that's worth half an hour's patience, then by all means, stay here." He set off without me.

I followed his shadow in silence. I felt the faintest twinge of guilt. Zidane believed I'd kidnapped Bartz. I'd left him hundreds of miles away, wondering how to get the best of me when he could be doing something useful with his time, like saving the world.

This world didn't deserve to be saved. I took a moment to compose myself before I made my entrance before Chaos' finest.

The red carpet beneath my feet was worn thin. I couldn't imagine even one of the monsters standing in this hall would take the time to maintain this rotting temple. Somehow, though, the demonic portraits in the four corners and the formidable throne seemed as new as the day their artists coaxed them from their base materials.

A few gave me dumbfounded stares as I took my undeserved place by Garland's right hand. Maybe he wanted them to believe I'd returned to my post as his Angel of Death. Maybe someone else in this room had stepped out of line even worse than me. I found that hard to believe.

"Good to finally see you this cycle," a grounding voice said amongst the serpents' hissing. It didn't immediately occur to me that someone could possibly be addressing me.

"Golbez. A pleasure, as always," was my belated but cordial reply.

He hid every inch of his body in thorny armor crafted from the blue darkness between the constellations. He lingered like an apology after he crossed Garland's path.

At least he knew he should apologize. He broke our agreement.

I shot him an obvious, loathing glare that followed him until he took his place amongst the others. For the first time in a long time, the hatred in my eyes was real. I was apparently no longer worth even the breath it took to betray me.

What a coward. I should have known better than to fight Zidane on Golbez's lunar fragment.

Sometimes when I felt particularly masochistic, I wondered what might have happened instead if I'd only asked for his help.

Might as well wonder what might have happened if I had been everything Garland wanted. Maybe the gods would have felt I wasn't worth calling upon. Maybe Zidane would have stood here in my place, with his beautiful young queen pitted against him.

Garland would have had different treacheries to deal with. The things people did when they decided someone else was worth loving. It would have made for a teary-eyed tragedy, if nothing else.

Golbez was standing next to an unexpected guest. Keeping my eye on the tattooed man, I leaned in towards Garland's ear. "Why is there a Warrior of Cosmos here?"

"Jecht is an honored champion of Chaos," he said under his breath. "If you'd shown your face before now, you would have already known that. If you don't even know who your allies are, then how can you prove that you're a worthy champion as well?"

Oddly enough, that wasn't my highest priority right now. "Where's his son? Where are Cloud and Terra?"

"It sounds like you're expressing a suspicious amount of interest in the wellbeing of Cosmos' chosen. But that can't be right, can it?"

I drew back as he called everyone to order. Cosmos accepted Cloud and Terra. Chaos traded Tidus for his father, for what reason? Because it seemed clever?

I held my arms close to my chest. He could force me to stay here and worship at Chaos' feet, but I refused to touch any surface in this filthy shrine.

If Golbez wanted to stay out of trouble, he needed to separate himself from Jecht. Dynamics and loyalties were a subtle thing when everyone was equally treacherous, and when everyone was watching.

There were those like me who desired power. And there were those, not like me, who needed it. Who swarmed like sharks to blood in the water, who were so insatiable that their own existence became nothing more than a means to an end.

Exdeath. He looked like the Invincible, if it sprouted legs and started walking around. He was one of those, as was the Cloud of Darkness. The Cloud took the form of a nude woman and was likewise as transparent in its goals. I almost admired its sincerity. After all, it was only following its natural drive to return everything to the balance of nothingness.

They would have been perfect allies, if they didn't insist on bringing everything to ruin with their own hands.

Everyone else was looking at Garland except for Emperor Mateus, who was looking at me. I didn't even notice he was there. He just slipped my mind, really. Maybe he should work on wearing something more noticeable, maybe that would do it. Someone should tell him it was all right to embrace his ego here amongst the Warriors of Chaos, instead of burying it beneath a humbling layer of gleaming gold and bejeweled armor.

It would never hold up in battle, but then again he would never be found marching alongside his men. Not that I would be either, but at least nobody expected it of me.

I matched his painted eyes and I smiled. He was a formidable mage, but he didn't want to destroy anything. In a word, useless.

I didn't even consider Sephiroth, and Ultimecia essentially already had what she wanted. Which left, of course, the dancing mad harlequin, Kefka, who still believed I owed him a new toy.

Of the four of them, one felled my brother to rob him of his memories. To rob me of him.

Because of that, my life was going to be far more difficult than it needed to be. So it was only fair that whoever did it should suffer the same fate.

"—this is a good opportunity for us," Garland continued. "The Warriors of Cosmos are scattered. Except for Bartz Klauser, who has been successfully captured. He will be guarded but otherwise left unharmed until I say otherwise. He has already obtained his Crystal. I am working on extracting it from him."

I suppressed a laugh. Why would Garland tell a lie that only half of us would believe?

"These so-called 'Crystals', how much power do they hold? What advantage do the Warriors of Cosmos have once they've acquired them?"

"You don't know what Crystals are?"

"That's the point, isn't it? We don't give them the chance."

Garland gave a gravelly sigh. Their bickering washed over me like a plague of buzzing insects. As discord came into its own, it occurred to me that they didn't have it.

I managed to do something right, at least. I didn't remember the last time I was this happy.

"The advantage is ours, if we seize the opportunity-"

The Emperor looked away from the cacophony and settled on me. Kefka gave me a wide, wicked smile. Even Sephiroth regarded me with a clinical coolness I had been dreading.

Suddenly everyone froze. Ultimecia straightened her posture.

"We were worried sick about you. You disappear for days and then here you are with Garland? What has he done to you?"

Her mocking care was almost convincing. How disturbing.

"What do you mean, what has he done to me? You were there, don't you remember?" I reminded her. "Do tell me who finally did you in. I should send them flowers."

The argument resumed. She could only stop time undetected for a few seconds amongst the Warriors of Chaos. Garland, did you honestly expect me to sit through this?

I took a step away from Chaos' throne. "I'm bored," I muttered under my breath. At this point, the next best thing for me was to act like I usually did, so no one believed I had changed.

"Stay where you are," Garland quietly commanded me, before he stepped forward to reign in the rising argument.

I didn't, but I did keep my magic dimmed and close about me while I disappeared, so the rest didn't immediately notice I was gone.

Surrounded by reassuring solitude, I collapsed in the shade of a rocky outcrop. I leaned into the cool stone as if it were capable of giving an embrace. I could sleep for ages.

Just as I thought I'd been forgotten about, a whirlwind of mismatched color and pattern scurried up to me.

"Kujie-coo, what's wrong with you? Why are you lying there like an unstrung marionette? Aw, come on, you can tell me, we're friends, aren't we?"

'Friends' was not a word I would sincerely use. I'd long since given up trying to tell Kefka how to properly pronounce the surprisingly easy two syllables of my name.

Reluctantly I sat up. Dignity was be so exhausting sometimes. I almost understood why people like Kefka abandoned it. If the clown wanted my attention so badly, he could have it.

"Kefka, you wouldn't happen to know where Garland has hidden Bartz Klauser, would you?"

He squealed with joy. It was a terrifying sound. "If I give you Bartz, what will you give me in return?"

Still standing, Kefka leaned over me and propped himself up with a hand pressed against the rock. He blocked the sun and his grin became a ghast's sickening smile. "Will you replace the plaything you lost?"

Kefka had an awfully good memory when he wanted to. "All I did was unlock that little bird's cage," I replied. "She was the one who chose to fly out the door. Maybe you should have taken better care of her."

"I spy with my little eye something silver. What could it be? Why, it's a prettier bird than the one I had before."

He was no longer smiling. "It used to belong to Garland. And now it belongs to whoever can catch it. Once it tried to fly away, so some of us broke its wings to keep it safe," he said as he pinched a strand of my hair between his fingertips.

"Was it my safety you were after?" I swatted his hand and rose to my feet. "Bartz survived the last cycle with his memories intact, didn't he?"

"You know, I think he did. Why, what's it to you?"

Only everything.

I winced. "That would make things complicated. You know Zidane hates me and Bartz wants me dead. I couldn't get near either of them without starting a fight. Not that I'd lose," I said quickly. Too quickly.

Now Kefka knew I didn't think I could fight Bartz and escape unscathed. If he knew anything, he'd take a chance with that, I was sure of it.

His grin returned. "No hope for reconciliation, is there?"

I shook my head and gave a little shrug. "There's always hope. Isn't that what Cosmos tells us?"

"A joke like that'll get you in trouble again," he said. "But if you're willing to give it a go, the doorway's on a little spit of land not far from here…"

He would jump at the opportunity to remind me, wouldn't he? But I decided I would let it go, because he was sure I thought I'd tricked him. He was having one of his saner days, and he didn't even know it.

The doorway lay between two columns. I had nearly forgotten such a dismal fragment existed until the aged rock on either side of me turned into brick and a haphazard network of pipes. The sun was replaced a by a far-off ceiling and unforgiving but ample electric light.

While none of this was familiar to me, it all belonged here. Everything was unending, like the greater world around us. But there was something inside the walls and just under the panels and buttons and switches that was not a part of this place.

What I detected was not quite a smell, though it compared unkindly to the sharpness of peppermint and damp stone, and beneath that, decay. Garland's influence ran through the wires here, slow but methodical, like a hunter setting a snare or an alchemist seeking the recipe for eternal life.

But I had never felt it flicker like that before. The old man had spent too much time as a warrior and commander. He was out of practice. As long as I was sensible, I had nothing to worry about.

It was an easy bid for insurance on Kefka's part: Garland, please, use my fragment for your schemes. You know I've always supported you.

Give me a break.

I walked past a sunken area with grated drainage. I scanned the floor for Bartz, and stared with dismay at the unstable metal stairs leading up to the levels above.

As I teleported up to the third level for a better vantage point, it did occur to me that I could simply wait. But with Kefka surely hovering impatiently outside, I didn't want there to be any misunderstandings.

Bartz's mind was a strange thing even when he hasn't just woken up from a controlled stupor. Like all of Cosmos' Warriors, he was hopelessly delusional.

My gaze fell on the glass holding tanks and my mind dipped back down into memory. I let my hand rest on the nearest railing for a second. When I removed it, a few motes of rust stuck to my palm like dried blood.

A brown-haired tatterdemalion sat halfway upright in the base of the nearest cylindrical tank, propped up by the glass. It fogged near his mouth and nose. He was breathing, then.

The magic keeping Bartz asleep was easy enough to dispel, but at this moment, he presented an opportunity that may not come again for some time. Uncertain if I wanted it, I drew close to his prison.

When I laid my palm gently on the glass in what I hope translated as a gesture of peace, he opened his eyes and blinked back drowsiness.

"Let me out of here," he said, his voice slurred. He placed his hand against the glass and concentrated on it before letting it fall again.

"What do you even want from me?" he demanded.

I supposed I should be grateful he hadn't outright threatened to kill me for betraying his best friend. His best friend who no longer remembered him, but seemed ready to defend him sure enough. Some things just kept happening.

I turned the glass under my palm into sand. Then I dropped down and placed my hands on his temples. He flinched, but right now, I was stronger than him. I could dispel the effects of Garland's magic from a mile away if I wanted to, but the last thing I wanted was a fight. I etched a little away just to clear his head.

"Garland claims you've found your Crystal, but he needs to figure out how to extract it. Neither of those things is true, though, is it?"

Of all answers, Bartz gave me a relieved smile. "Wait—Kuja? Oh, thank Cosmos it's you. I was worried—"

Thin-soled shoes tramped up the metal stairs in a playful rhythm. I didn't have time for this. "Yes or no?"

"Yes—I mean, no, it's not true, I haven't found it yet."

"Then why would he even bother? Why does he need you?"

"I—I don't know, he just grabbed me!"

"Really? Are you telling me that you let a thousand year-old man in a gigantic suit of armor with a weapon as tall and heavy as you are sneak up on you?"

"I didn't know he was literally old, I thought it was just something you guys called him affectionately, like he's your 'old man'. You know, it does sound pretty bad when you put it like that."

He didn't know anything. Garland had made sure of that, in case one of the Warriors of Chaos decided to do precisely what I was doing right now.

I cleared the rest of the fog and lifted him up. As I did, I cast a small spell upon him. Nothing much, just something to keep him light on his feet. Then I reached into the air beside me and I tore.

The first few threads of the fragment were always the hardest. Once I had a firm grip, the rest came readily, if not easily. My arm locked with an ache that burned deeper than my muscles.

"Zidane's looking for you," I told him as I pushed him forward into the portal. Already, the edges were weaving themselves back into their proper place.

He stumbled through into a green clearing dappled with gentle sun. "You're not coming?"

"Run, idiot, or the next person to throw you into one of those holding tanks might be me."

He knew what I meant. "But—"

"I thought it was a little too quiet up here," mused Kefka as he rounded the third floor landing.

That's what it took for Bartz to get moving. He shot a long and unsure look at me, shook his head, and ran off. The air closed in behind him.

"You're just going to stand there?" exclaimed Kefka. He hurried up to me and reached out for a stray thread of ether, but the portal had shut. "How could you let him escape?!"

Now only a foot away from me, he added very gravely, "I can think of a few reasons."

I rolled my eyes. "Garland's orders," I added. Let him puzzle that one out. "Right now that boy is running off to do exactly what's needed of him."

"But you said—I thought—" He cocked his head. "So you're Garland's little bird again."

"I am what I've always been meant to be."

I sauntered away from him with a smile on my face, even though I wanted to tear him apart. As hard as I tried, I couldn't stop thinking about the disappointment in Bartz's eyes.

I'd freed him. That was far more than he had any right to expect. I should have killed him. Then he would never look at me like that again.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy IX and Dissidia are the property of Square Enix. The people who came together to make these characters and their worlds made their fans a home to which they will always return.

 **CHAPTER THREE**

You get a different perspective once you've been knocked down into the dirt. A very different perspective when it was the dirt of a world that was a strange cousin to your place of birth, knocked down by the man who brewed you up in a vial, hoping you'd grow up to annihilate everyone you've ever known.

"How about I stay where I am, and you go find yourself a cliff to jump off so I don't have to help you this time?"

Kuja remembered. He didn't just remember Garland – he probably started off remembering Garland, if nothing else – he remembered the day he destroyed Terra.

That was impossible, unless he'd picked a fight with Garland about, oh, about every three hours or so since the battle had started. Unless he hadn't died.

Why did he lead us into a trap with three other Warriors of Chaos, only to fight us himself? To prove his loyalty to them? He wasn't big on that sort of gesture if it meant putting himself in the line of fire. That's what black mages and Eidolons were for, in his book.

Maybe it wasn't about loyalty. It was about having tricked us. He'd fight us all himself then. He'd love it.

For a moment, I started to think that everything I'd done was pointless. That everything I'd done was a waste of time. And what a feeling that was, when for the first time in forever, I knew were running out of time.

It didn't last long.

I missed the days when Garland didn't pack such a punch. My head stung, but I'd live. If I followed them, though, I might not. No saying what would happen to Bartz.

That's what got me up and on my feet. Instead of focusing on what I didn't learn – Bartz's whereabouts – I went through what I did.

Kuja was acting alone. Very alone, by the sound of it. And yet he'd gotten so mad when I made a joke about his buddies. Guess that's what happened when people figured out you couldn't be trusted. Made things easier for me.

This battle had gone on long enough. We'd gone through all the cards in the deck. Everyone knew how everyone else liked to play. All the tricks, all the games, all the match-ups of alliances and rivalries.

I used to say to the others: this time we'll do it. This time we'll get to go home. I wouldn't just say it, either: I believed it. I felt it in my bones.

I didn't resent the conflict that had conscripted me and held my memories hostage. Cosmos needed someone like me.

In exchange, she gave me the chance to accomplish what I never could before. And just like I knew we'd win, I knew in my bones I finally found peace with my brother. I knew we were going home together.

So much for that.

I also knew better than to let Bartz run off on his own, but I couldn't pass up on the bet: first person to find their Crystal.

I'd seen the Crystal I'm tracking down only once before, but I remembered it like it was hovering right in front me.

At first, you'd think the only thing the Crystal had going for it was its sheer size. Its glow was faint and unsteady. It looked like it'd been lifted up straight from the vein, all jagged edges and points.

As for the mineral itself, it had flecked intrusions mucking up its pale clarity – the color of memory. It was beautiful in its own way, but you'd never see it on display in the halls of Alexandria's castle or the great auction houses of Treno – funny, considering where it came from. Under that shiny surface ran the current that would ruin the world.

Standing there alone on the surface of the deep blue lunar world, I got the distinct feeling I was searching for something that no longer existed.

In any case, that would have to wait. Garland had hauled away my possible lead on Bartz, but I had the feeling Kuja hadn't been lying to me. He really hadn't taken Bartz, which in itself was odd. Petty and personal had always been his style.

So that left me with no idea what to do next, but nothing was going to come to me if I just stood here. I left the fragment.

Unfortunately, the doorway tried to be helpful. It spit me out in the verdant heart of Cosmos territory, in the middle of what might have been the door to an old stone church.

It didn't look familiar to me, but it would to somebody.

There was a small farming village back home, called Dali by the locals. I hadn't gone back in years, but it was a place I knew well. Or at least, I thought I did.

Last time I visited, it changed. It dwindled into a lesser form of itself. The fields were left for the wild to reclaim, and all the adults were gone. Of course, we found out the reason pretty quickly, but every time I think of Dali, I think of that emptiness for just a second before I remember the horror under the ground.

It wasn't so different here. This was a place made up of places I knew, that all of us knew, but in lesser forms. It was a patchwork quilt of a world.

There wasn't anything here that made this place a world. No people, no past, no future.

Under the ground in Dali, Vivi had seen those versions of himself hanging limp under the machinery, moving along the conveyor belt, thrown into coffin-like boxes. Recreations of life, prepped for war. We had those here, at least.

It would take weeks to travel north to Chaos territory on foot, and I'd probably run into half a hundred manikins in between here and there. I couldn't do it alone, even if I had any inclination to do so.

I stepped back through the doorway, took one look at Cecil's fragment, thought some really strong words about my family, and walked back out.

Gargantuan granite boulders dwarfed the sparse clutches of spearlike grass, probably poisonous flowers, and the occasional prickly cactus. If this was the will of the battle, then I had no business just standing around and taking in the scenery.

I gave the cactus a wide berth. I didn't want to spend the next half hour pulling spines from my tail. I looked up; there always seemed to be a storm churning up the red horizon. There was the slightest whiff of salt on the wind: we were near the ocean.

The granite outcrops guided me along on a trail; I kept it in sight but used the cover the landscape gave me as I tried to look out for others doing the same.

The ground here was dry, but not so dry it didn't retain any footsteps. After about an hour, I found some. A pointed toe, broken at regular intervals: armor. The heel was flat, and the overall size of the foot was small, not really any bigger than mine.

They came from a different direction and stopped not far in front of me. Then they shifted in place beside a cool outcrop. The ground was disturbed, but they stopped there.

I heard an infuriated sigh from higher up the slope. "You're late!" Kefka shouted at me as he stepped into view. He floated a few inches above the ground.

He threw a fireball at me. "And if you're not going to be on time, then why don't you just bow out now?!"

I dodged. "Late for what?" Despite his involvement in our part of the last cycle, I didn't want to push a fight, so I resisted the urge to draw my weapons.

He threw another kind of magic at me this time, something sharp that grazed my shoulders and broke the skin.

Kefka was somehow pathetic, off-putting, and downright terrifying all in one. He reminded me of Zorn and Thorn, except he was unfortunately less incompetent.

Kuja never had anything nice to say about him. They'd poisoned his mind with magic, he told me. He'd felt sorry for Kefka. At first.

So everything else aside, I was going to take his word for it.

"I could've really used your help back there," he said. His clown makeup just accentuated his scowl. "But thanks to you, he got away. That prissy little… ugh! Can you believe he went back to Garland?"

It struck me that unless there was another one of us running around here, the footsteps in the dirt could have only belonged to Kuja.

"Who went back to Garland," I needed to know. That wasn't the impression I'd gotten earlier today. But who knew for sure.

"Like I said, I really could have used a hand. You and Bartz together, you could have beaten him for sure. Then he would have been all mine," he said to himself, as if he'd forgotten I was right there.

A defensive impulse flared up, then died back down. Some things didn't change that easily. "What happened to Bartz?" I said, steering the conversation in a different direction.

He rolled his eyes. "Oh, I have no idea," he said to me. "But he's probably far, far away from here by now. Back in Cosmos Territory. Where you should be, unless you're thinking of joining up full-time."

Kefka swept in close and examined me. A kaleidoscope of harmless magic scanned me. He grimaced. "No, you're no good yet, what a shame."

Speaking of annoying. I started to walk off. "Okay, listen," I said. "You bring up some bad memories from both here and my home. So please get to the point if you've got one. Otherwise, you go your way, I'll go mine."

"Of course, of course. You do know where you're going."

"Well, I thought I was going to get the whole tour from here to Chaos awhile back, but you cut our trip short," I replied.

"That's not what I'm talking about," said Kefka with a co-conspirators' smile. "You ever feel like giving us a hand again with your brother, you come straight to me. Don't bother with the likes of the Emperor."

I drew my daggers. "What's that?" Kefka wasn't supposed to know. Nobody else was supposed to know.

But he'd said all he wanted to say.

"Wait!" I called after him.

He bolted off towards the ocean. I lost track of him, but I ran off in that direction all the same, until I came up against the edge of the cliffs. The surf roared, but I caught sight of Kefka's colorful clothing on the small cape below. He disappeared between two broken columns.

I looked over the side of the cliff. I got enough of a sense of my route to call myself cautious.

For not the first time day, I told myself everything I was doing was worth it. Somehow I was keeping Dagger and everyone safe. I told myself that at least once a day for as long back as I could remember her, remember them. Before then, I'd just felt like I was missing something so important to me, but also that it was my fault it wasn't there with me.

That's exactly what I would have called out Dagger for feeling: that the weight of it all was mine alone to carry and it was noble or whatever to be apart from the people you cared about if you were doing it to keep them safe.

She would have called me out on it too. It was a stupid way to think, and it was just a way for me to put the pain of separation behind a wall, where I could pretend I wasn't feeling it.

I knew it was stupid, but that didn't stop me from thinking it.

Besides, I had no idea what I was doing here and if it was keeping anybody safe. Who knew if I was in this place outside of time, or if the years were going by while she waited, forgot, lived her entire life thinking I'd chosen my brother over her, and gotten myself killed for my troubles.

I turned away. There was seeing something through, and there was running headlong off a cliff.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy IX and Dissidia are the property of Square Enix. The people who came together to make these characters and their worlds made their fans a home to which they will always return.

 **CHAPTER FOUR**

"Everything I did was wrong. I've destroyed entire civilizations, thousands of years of knowledge and tradition. I've broken an entire planet's soul and I will never be able to replace what I've broken.

"And you don't even understand a single thing I'm saying, do you?"

The single manikin stared through me. Having taken on the form of the Warrior of Light, it carried a shield in one hand, sword in another, but it stood slack and defenseless, waiting.

Since it had no sense of self, it wouldn't know why it was the funniest thing I've seen all day.

A manikin of a manikin. The longer I thought about it, the more it lost its admittedly morbid humor. I've seen the manikins of myself, after all.

It looked as frail as a glass ornament, and fractured the weak sunlight in just the same way. It flinched when I touched its chiseled face, as if I were the one with slick, unforgiving skin.

I left the scarcest fingerprint. The manikin didn't breathe, didn't blink, and if my hand fell to its chest, it wouldn't be because of its armor that I would feel no heartbeat.

Stormclouds amassed over the far-off foothills as thunder stirred the electricity in the air. The clouds had been growing since midday, but they'd come no closer to this clearing, and there was no relief from the desolate heat.

"I would sooner spend the rest of my life surrounded by the survivors, despising me, wanting to inflict the same pain upon me that I've brought down on them," I confided.

It tilted his head. You brainless statue, I wasn't giving you a command. I gripped its sword arm by the wrist. I ran my opposite palm up the length of the blade until the crystal bit through my flesh and my blood streaked the weapon. I was giving it the first strike, but it refused to do what it was made to do.

I left the scent of my blood in the air. I let it seep into the silk and leather wrapped around my hand and drip down my fingers, over my knife-like nails.

"I'd rather suffer through all of that than die alone, with nothing but the memories of the person I once was. If I could just be remembered for something – for doing something worth admiring –"

My voice broke with sincerity.

"Aren't you listening to me?!" I snarled. Why didn't it attack me?

These stupid, faceless constructs. At least my black mages had souls. They knew evil when they saw it, and good, even if they hadn't fought back.

"I'm a traitor! I was one of Cosmos' champions! I want this pointless war to be over. I want to go home!"

The manikin didn't even raise its shield to defend itself before I shattered it to pieces.

When the light dissipated, I breathed into the satisfying ache of holy magic slipping back under my skin. I felt nothing of the echo that would have rocked me if the senseless thing had even a makeshift soul.

If nothing happened after a performance like that, then nothing was going to happen. Even with a manikin shaped after the Warrior of Light, there was no glimmer of a soul.

How they managed to copy us with such precision would still be a wonderful mystery to solve, but it would get me nowhere. It was inevitable: I would need to play with more powerful pieces.

The thought of opening myself to the souls of the Warriors of Chaos made me physically ill, but I wasn't strong enough to challenge Chaos on my own. The only warriors whose souls would be of any use to me were the ones with full possession of their memories. How else could their suffering have that sonorous resonance I require?

So, old man, even though I knew you recalled nearly every pitiful moment of your dual lives, I decided I would wait until last for you.

I'll take your warriors away from you one by one so that for once in this miserable world, you will remember defeat. You will recoil from the blinding light and I will be there, your faithful Angel of Death, to offer you the sheltering shade of oblivion.

The first one I took would need to be strong. Even if I was careful, those left alive would be suspicious. Exdeath would certainly be a good power boost, if nothing else. Nobody would miss him. But he didn't inspire me.

Golbez, on the other hand, has suffered so much already. He has condemned himself to Chaos' service, though he sowed it best when he struggled against his own restraints. It wouldn't be hard for me to talk him into giving himself to me. Cosmos was cruel, Golbez, but I'd be gentle.

Or I could reap the Emperor's soul.

"What could a manikin possibly ever do to offend you?" he said as he enters the clearing, his spear held in an indolent grip at his side.

With the instinct that bound the manikin together now broken, the crystal cracked readily under his boots. High time I collected my reward for enduring Kefka's friendship.

"I thought we'd seen the last of you when you left the Chaos Shrine," he continued. "I was sure of it when I was informed you set Bartz free under Garland's secret orders. Tell me it's not true you've allied yourself to him. Not after what he inflicted upon you for all those cycles past."

He laid richly into the deeper tones of his voice, as if he would be the world's confidant and tyrant both. I admit, his words trapped me better than any of his overcomplicated spells ever have.

"For all your varied roles throughout the years, I have never once seen you so aimless. I've heard that your gift fails you against Cosmos' champions… to say nothing of your resolve."

Who didn't learn about my fight with Zidane? Why were all my comrades such insufferable gossips?

"Of course your magic isn't doing well, considering your brush with such a toxic element. You know very well I'm also a devoted scholar of such arts. Let me help you regain focus," he said, his hand outstretched.

I examined it coldly. "I keep forgetting you've survived since you've been summoned."

The blood from my palm dripped from my nails. "I suppose it's something I take for granted by now."

I sent out a weak and invisible pulse to see if it brushed against anything that I would find inconvenient. Here and there were artful little iris-shaped snares, intricate as mandalas, precise as poetry. One by one, I crushed them like dried flowers.

"A distinction we share," he replied. "We have been together in this world for quite some time. Some of our comrades tend to forget that when they underestimate you."

Behind my smile, I swallowed my revulsion. I hated it when they tried to flatter me, even if I'd done everything to cultivate a reputation for vanity. It made it so easy to tell when the others wanted something from me.

"Garland has betrayed you before and will betray you again," he continued, obviously done with formalities. "He has failed all of us. I want to end this cycle of battle forever. I would challenge Chaos myself, only I see little point in charging in headlong without some knowledge of my opponent beforehand."

"Now you want Chaos off the board?" I asked.

He had the grace to hesitate. "I do see the humor in this situation, yes."

I laughed. "All right, this was lovely. I do enjoy your audacity, but I'll only allow myself to be insulted so many times in a single conversation."

I tore a portal into the air behind me. I didn't know where it led, but any fragment would be better than here.

"Insulted? No one has survived challenging him except for you."

So he remembered me before I was Garland's Angel of Death. At least Kefka was honest about what he wanted from me. The Emperor was less obvious. I decided to let him think he's convinced me to hear him out. Reluctantly, I faced him once more.

"You've always had a tactician's mind. You must have gone over that fight again and again. I'm interested in knowing what you would do... if you had the others under your command."

"The others?" I repeated as if I were a fool.

"My apologies. By the others, I mean our…"

Just shut up; you weren't sorry.

"Ultimecia," I answered immediately. She was already his ally; it wouldn't insult him to discuss a strategy he must have at least partially considered already. "Her gift with time magic would give you the only chance to make the fullest use of your own. There are no tricks once you stand before him. There is only the strength of your resolve."

That, and there was Cosmos' blessing; there was nothing the Emperor or any other Warrior could do without it.

I imagined what it would look like for the hubris in his eyes to die.

A swelling quiet filled the space between the Emperor and myself.

"I've always wanted to ask you why you challenged him."

What's this talk of 'always'? We were never even half so close as he insinuated. This is the work of an amateur. He's never had to persuade anyone with anything subtler than sheer force before, has he?

The lie waited on my tongue. _The same reason I challenged Garland before we were brought to this world._ _I imagine Garland had enough of my disobedience after that._ I would then laugh, to let the Emperor know he should, as well.

"You're trembling," he pointed out.

Thank you, I already noticed. Now I had to play along with it.

I gave him the hand I'd cut open on the manikin's sword. I steeled myself; his healing magic was less like a balm and more like cauterization. I had endured far worse at his hands, but when it was over, my sigh of relief was genuine enough.

I laughed it off. "Does Ultimecia know you've come for me? What would your empress say if she saw us like this?"

"Ultimecia's beauty has its rivals even here, and I confess, others who may be a much better partner to have by my side in times of war. True war, not this mockery we engage ourselves in."

He traced the path his magic seared across my palm. "I never told you. I did have an empress, once. She was low-born. But I loved her, and for my love, my people loved her as well."

"I also had a daughter. When she was in her mother's womb I prayed she would take after her, but as she grew she looked more and more like me. Fair-haired, her noble lineage apparent for all to see.

"When she came of age there were many contenders for her hand. Not just for her beauty, but for the magical prowess she inherited and for the crown that would one day belong to her. I gave her rooms in the highest tower in Palamecia and surrounded her with my most loyal soldiers. But even so, she was stolen from me."

When he paused, I replied, "I have a hard time believing you allowed that to be the end of the story."

This made him smile. "My spies found her in the castle of a small neighboring kingdom, held captive by the prince. I remembered him; he had come to court, but had nothing to offer her. When he refused to return her to me, I decided to take her back myself."

"He led his kingdom's defense himself; my ships killed him in the assault. When the walls fell, I learned that they had slain my daughter and then placed the weapon in her own hands as a cruel joke. I leveled the castle and the city around it. My empress withstood the loss of our daughter, but when she walked upon the smoldering ground, she collapsed and died several days later. She knew I had found something I loved more than her."

His daughter had obviously fallen in love with the prince when he came to court and used her magic to elope with him, just as she had obviously taken her own life when she learned her beloved had been killed at her father's command. Didn't he ever read?

The Emperor's eyes lit up with a strange, patient bloodlust. He hadn't wanted to share with me his memories of loss. He wanted to assure me that he had set his path to Chaos' throne long ago.

I tilted my head. "And how does one seduce a battlefield?"

"By force," he responded, a joke shared between two kindred souls. But we weren't, and it wasn't.

"You do know I can't simply drop everything and join your cause," I said to him.

"So Garland is holding something over you," the Emperor concluded.

"I don't need any more help from you, thanks."

"Kuja—" he began. I seemed to have thrown him, but not for long. In my upturned palm, pinpricks of violet light twisted like fibers into thread. He left the complete glyph in my hand like an invitation.

The beauty, the craftsmanship, the formality – he knew I appreciated such things. I valued them for their care, not for their lack of it. He made it a point to remind me of my place, of my mistakes, and he made such a show of putting all that aside in the name of a common goal.

"For my daughter I burned a kingdom to the ground. What I found in those fires, I see within you. Will your pride protect you better than I will?" he said to me.

Then he turned away and left the clearing, the remains of the Warrior of Light-formed manikin crunching under his gilded heels.

His possessive words twisted inside me; he had been watching me since I found the manikin.

Through his eyes, it must have looked like I was baiting it for a different reason. Which I wasn't; there was no point anymore. He'd seen to that. What I had thought was an invitation was now a threat.

I curled my palm. I pressed harder, steadying myself through the pressure. The glyph dissolved.

I still had it, though; he would know if his magic were snuffed out. It would be unwise to refuse his offer so bluntly.

'What I saw within those fires, I see within you.' What a line. One would think he was trying to recruit me, not shame me into compliance. He worked so hard, too. He's never chattered half so much in one conversation.

Clutching my hand close to my chest, I looked up at the sky. Thunder rolled in the distance, too many seconds after the lightning. The air was heavy and still. I wanted rain.

No, that wasn't what I wanted. I didn't want anything this land or the people trapped here could give me.

In the beginning, I knew two things: I must never allow the others to see my tail, and I was out of my element.

My appearance upset the hierarchy. Garland said I had to convince them my interests lay outside rising in rank, that I was concerned with the efforts of Chaos as a whole.

This naturally made some people suspicious. Some people disregarded me outright, some sought to turn my momentary lack of allies to their advantage. Imagine me, a team player.

It took me a few moments to adjust my charms. Here there were no court intrigues, no enchantments of boredom and lore, no luxury. In order to become more palatable to this crowd, I sharpened my tongue, hardened my gaze. I had to let a little more of my true self slip through, or at least what I knew of it at the time. Sacrifices had to be made for the greater good. For Garland's greater good.

Under his command, I gathered their opinions of him. I played it as anyone else would. After all, we all knew we were suspicious of anyone who presumed to order our kind around. It was a flawless way for me to discover what they thought of him.

Garland was too cautious, was not exercising the might under his control.

Garland was but a figurehead for the darkness, an avatar granted to us to lead the way.

Garland was the most prudent, the only one capable of keeping us under control enough to assure victory instead of mutual destruction.

Garland was a fool and his days were numbered. Guess which gilded despot confided that to me.

It was impossible to ignore the desire. It manifested in multiple forms: lust, power, authority, a draw to the darkness, and, oddly enough, for commiseration. For understanding, for a silence that could never be anything more.

There were whispers, touches that were not what they seemed - and whispers and touches that were only what they were. In an empty world, there was the curious fixation with and denial of the urges that made us belong here.

I was an object of early fascination to the Cloud of Darkness and Exdeath. I may not have remembered the reservoir of vengeful souls I had invited into my body, but there was no disguising the damage from them.

"The one Garland was so loath to summon," the Cloud of Darkness mused.

Exdeath was a wall behind me. The Cloud's limbs wrapped around mine. I was cornered, but I was curious.

"Relax," one of them said to me. "We harbor little of the ill will or intent you suspect of us. Save it for your other comrades."

There were no words, intimate or downright carnal to describe what we had done. What I, fascinated, had permitted them to do with me. I did not feel them on my skin but under it. What I felt was not flesh or armor, but a call.

"I understand you a little more," said Exdeath. "It was not so long ago... I too had monster hordes, powerful magical armaments at my disposal. When I thought I still needed them."

I frowned. "I don't recall—"

"The residue lingers," he answered me.

They enveloped me, then found me wanting. I embraced the abyss and it was with ecstatic terror I realized that it was not something I was encountering for the first time, but returning to. My moans changed from exhilaration to fear. I had no recollection of it.

My unforgivably human reaction repelled them.

"Something is troubling you," said Garland upon my return. "I advised you to keep your distance from the battlefield. Your constitution is not one inclined for the mud of warfare."

There was no mud, no warfare. And even so, I hardly thought I would succumb to such conditions. But I kept that to myself. Interesting that he seemed the authority on my apparently delicate constitution.

I did not know what to ask Garland. My missing memories were not a hole, but a thing that my mind could not see.

"Exdeath and the Cloud of Darkness," I began. "They were some of the first?"

"They were," said Garland. "They told you?"

I shook my head. "It was a guess. They seemed drawn to a more simplistic principle than some of the others. Not to disparage them—a purity of purpose. Odd that they thought they would find kinship in me."

Garland frowned. He hated it when I took longer than two sentences to get to the point. Too bad. "Are they loyal?"

That's what he asked me? "Yes," I snapped. "Worry not. They're quite loyal."

Even Garland couldn't pretend to ignore that tone. "I apologize, he said, to my surprise. "Please, explain how you came to this question. Did they hurt you?"

I laughed. "Did they hurt me? Please. It was just idle curiosity."

"Kuja," he called out to me. But I'd already told him all he cared to know.

I left after that. I went out. Out to the battlefield, to those horrible mud pits he tried so hard to dissuade me from. I saw fragments of worlds I could have never dreamed of, each as dead as this one. Then one day, I saw a boy with a tail.

I had never before seen another Warrior with a tail. He wasn't one of ours, but I didn't care. He didn't even hide his. Why?

"What are you doing? Oh," Kefka said as he surveyed the field below. "Garland's got you spying on the enemy? That's weird."

"Who is that boy?" I asked him.

"I'm going to assume you're talking about monkey-tail. His name's Zidane. Don't know much else about him, though. Probably because he doesn't know anything about himself."

The both of us stood in silence. Kefka's appearance alarmed me, or perhaps offended me, so I returned my gaze to this Zidane.

"He doesn't know where you are, does he?" asked Kefka after a while. Then he laughed. "I do wonder about what the hell he was thinking. You can't cancel out one mistake with another."

For some reason, his half-mad chatter rang true. "What mistake," I asked.

He cackled. "Better make sure Daddy doesn't catch you out here."

I didn't think I'd heard him right. When I turned to him, he was gone.

Garland had warned me not to become true friends with any of them. He warned me they would discover my power, exploit my limited knowledge of this world, and abuse me as their own tool of war.

I'd had the brains to ask him who he was exactly, but not the luck for him to tell me the truth. "I'm the poor fool who has to keep them in line," he said to me.

I remembered when I was oblivious. A new experience, rather unique to this world.

A mile or so into the sparse forest, I came across a doorway that likely hadn't been used in ages. I braced myself against the pull of a sunny castle fragment: where it wanted to take me. Instead I gave it the chance to recognize me. Take me back to the beginning, I told it. Take me to my end.

The door obliged and swallowed me whole.

Warriors of Cosmos and Chaos alike found it jarring to look behind the curtain. Not that there was much to see: milky translucent rubble formed in the hues of a weakly setting sun, a disappointing dark sky, and an unsettling sense of unfulfilled waiting charged in the stale air.

It was sad and barren, and the memory of the Crystal floating in the gap only made it more pathetic.

When the other Warriors of Chaos described this place to me, they found themselves recounting moments of their own weakness and despair. When they became aware of themselves, they snapped back into their usual selves and condemned the area as some twisted creation of Cosmos', proof that the goddess of order was no better than her counterpart.

Garland had his shrine, and the Emperor, his castle. This was the fragment I brought with me.

My mind wandered to the recesses and hiding places that surrounded me. I listened and I heard nothing, but there were spells for that. I began to weave a barrier of protection in my head when I stopped myself. The condolence of isolation was secure.

With no need to maintain any semblance of composure, I sat, and then stretched out on the ground. My middle laid flat against the same reflective stone where I stood not so long ago, my wretched self raw with desperation.

While the others were forced to face the parts of themselves they hated the most when they trespassed upon my territory, I oddly cherished this place. It reminded me that no matter what the instruments of this world might do, my decisions alone shaped my future. Chaos himself said that to me, so it must be true.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy IX and Dissidia are the property of Square Enix. The people who came together to make these characters and their worlds made their fans a home to which they will always return.

 **CHAPTER FIVE**

I was back on my home turf, licking my wounds and wondering what my next move would be. Casting healing magic on yourself was no fun, and worry didn't make for a great distraction.

"Zidane!" I was tackled out of nowhere. I fell backwards, but then I was hauled upright by my arms. "I found it!"

Bartz was unharmed, knew who I was, and was practically beaming. I would have been happy enough with two out of three. Three out of three was a little suspicious.

"You found your Crystal?"

Out of breath, he let me go and doubled over, hands on his knees. He shook his head. "Yours."

That sounded too good to be true, to say the least. "How would you know what mine even looks like?"

"It looks kind of like the last one we saw, right? Only it's a different color. It didn't do anything when I got close to it, anyways, so it's definitely yours."

I wanted to share his excitement, I really did. Maybe when I trusted it. "Okay, let's take this back. Where were you? I thought you were in trouble, I was looking all over for you!"

"Garland caught me. Then I got free. Then I found your Crystal, and I came looking for you."

"That sounds pretty convenient," I prompted him. Then I waited. He was keeping something to himself, but if he really didn't want to share it, he wouldn't have that dumb look on his face.

"Your brother rescued me. I think he fought off Kefka to make sure I was safe, I don't know."

I didn't tell him I would have been there, if I hadn't been so late. I needed him to finish his story.

I frowned. "Garland captured you and my brother saved you from him and Kefka? Did they tell you where you would find my Crystal, too?"

Bartz helped me up. "I know where you're coming from with all this, but you've got to believe me. You okay to walk? The doorway's not that far from here. We should hurry before the fragment shifts."

Of course I was ready to walk. I'd survived a lot worse than Kefka. He would know, he'd been there. Of course, he didn't remember as much as I did.

Three times now, we'd done introductions. "So how'd you get into this business?"

"Me? Well, I come by it honestly," he'd answer. "My dad was a Warrior of Light, by a different title, and I was chosen by the Crystals to be one too. You?"

My response was always some version of, "I was asked by a great ruler." He may have been the least uptight of the 'chosen' types, but it was still best to start things off slow.

Truth was, I hadn't quite gotten around to filling him in on all the details this time around. It had been painful the first two times, even if it did help keep events straight.

That, and I'd wanted to tell the story together with Kuja this time. I wanted to see things the way he'd seen them.

So when it came to telling our stories, I tended to let Bartz go first. I knew it by heart, now. He only ever varied by a couple of words.

"Exdeath was a warlock from another world, sealed in mine by my father, one of the Dawn Warriors, who came from that world. He stayed behind to watch over Exdeath's seal, but he also had me.

"My mom wasn't well. She suffered from these fits. One day one got the better of her. Then three or four years ago, my dad got sick, and that was that.

"In fighting Exdeath, I had the chance to travel to my father's world. I didn't hesitate. The only people I cared about were coming with me or were already there. The only exception was Boko. I knew he'd take care of himself. Maybe find another chocobo to hang out with instead of me.

"I wanted to travel the world. I got more than I asked for. I still am," he'd always add. "This one's not my favorite. But I like the friends I've made here. And that's all that matters."

Bartz wasn't lying, the doorway wasn't so far. We caught our breath as we looked down into a valley between two large hills.

"There," he said, pointing to a pile of stone rubble about a mile off. "That's the one."

He started off downhill. "This place, it's like the Crystals have stopped. Not in the water, or the air, but in a bigger Crystal that makes a place, a place. Anyways. Your turn."

I didn't remember if it actually was my turn or not; obviously we hadn't played since we'd gotten separated. Some days, I wanted to trade one of my weapons for a pack of cards.

I tried to think of something crazy as I followed him, but I was stuck on the Crystal thing he'd just said. I could think of a kind of Crystal that did that.

"Library inside a waterfall."

Bartz laughed. "Come on, do you want me to win or not?"

He hadn't said 'true', yet. "What about the humidity? All those one-of-a-kind books," I asked him. Nothing in the rules said we couldn't try to talk the other out of their choice.

"Magic, obviously," he answered. "True. That's one, isn't it."

I'd given him the first one to build up a false sense of confidence. Maybe I would give him the next one as well. "Religious rats who lived in a giant tree protected by a sandstorm."

"Tree stuff? You? True," said Bartz. He looked at me and grinned. "That's two."

"You say that like half your things don't involve trees. Okay: aristocrat cat-woman who collected rare coins that altogether told the story of the Zodiac."

"True."

"False," I said to him. "Bird-woman."

Bartz rolled his eyes. "Technicality. Whatever, my turn. Furry bat-winged fairies with antennae that only communicate in two syllables."

"You're just describing moogles… moogles that can't talk! False."

"True," he corrected me. "In one of the worlds I went to, there was only one girl I knew who could understand a single thing they were saying."

I checked the daggers at my waist. If I didn't use them for long enough, I started to fidget. A bad habit I'd picked up here. You'd think there was Mist in the air.

"Is it just me, or is it odd there aren't any manikins around here?"

"I'm sick of manikins," he complained. "And of having to walk everywhere. There's got to be an airship or a drake stashed somewhere underground here. What did we bet on again?"

I thought back. And then I laughed. We'd never picked anything. "Why?"

He shrugged. "Since I found your Crystal for you and all, you'd have to owe me something even better than before." He looks across the meadow. "Come on an adventure with me."

"What?"

"I'm serious. When we win. Your place or mine, doesn't matter. You'll have to tell me a little more, though. I want to know what I'm walking into. What really made you your home's Warrior of Light?"

I was not my home's Warrior of Light. I didn't think Gaia even had them, at least not by the time I ended up there.

"Okay," I said. I mulled it over.

"Once upon a time, there was a man who didn't know where he came from," I began. "This man had longed to find his birthplace ever since he was a small child. A place he only remembered in his dreams."

"Why did this man do that? I thought he had a family," said Bartz, looking at me with concern.

"He wanted to know more about himself, maybe. About his parents, the house where he was born. One day, the man left the home of his adoptive father and went on a quest to find the answer.

"His only clue was the blue light he saw in his dreams. He thought it might be a memory of his birthplace. An ocean, maybe...?"

I had said all this before. To him, of course, but before that. I'd told this story to Garnet.

"So did he find it or what?" asked Bartz.

"A lot happened along the way!" I said, but I couldn't think of anything that important, really, not to anyone else. I sure didn't find any Crystals or go to any kingdoms in different worlds. Not for awhile yet.

"Alright," I said with a sigh, "We can skip ahead."

"He never found it. How could he? His only clue was a colored light. So he went back to the home of his adoptive father… well, what do you think his father did when he came home?"

Bartz frowned. "Is this a trick question? Was his father gone?"

He'd never said that before. Every other time, he'd just asked me if I'd been welcomed home.

"The father raised his fist and beat the son he had worked so hard to raise."

"What? Why? Why would you go home?"

"Because the father smiled, after beating up his son! He just gave his son a beating. But this is what the man thought when he saw his father smile...This is my home. This is the place I call home."

Bartz shook his head. "I don't get it, man… but whatever made you happy. Sorry, whatever made this man happy."

If not for the smile, I could have very well been describing my homecoming to Terra.

"Is that how it ended?" he asked me. "Your journey? You went out and you saved the world against the forces of Chaos, and then you came home to your family? Did your brother come with you?"

"I don't really know," I told him.

"You don't have to tell me."

"I mean it. I don't remember."

We came up to the ruins. The doorway itself would have been easy to find, even without Bartz' help. It was hard to believe my Crystal was just lying there, out in the open. Hidden in plain sight.

Bartz went through the doorway first. After all, he was the only one of us who knew what we'd be looking at on the other side. I took one last look at the green valley behind us.

Day gave way to primordial night. Grass and boulders, over to dawn-colored mineral.

"You want to speak to me as my father? A little late for that, don't you think?"

I recognized the place immediately. I knew what it looked like, smelled like, and sounded like. At least, I knew what it sounded like when Kuja was there.

I ducked behind a broken crystal formation. Bartz followed. Were they here when you saw my Crystal? I mouthed to him.

He shook his head. Not Garland, he replied.

Which meant Kuja had been. What did Bartz hope would happen? A teary, heartfelt family reunion straight from the end of one of Lord Avon's comedies?

He smiled sheepishly. He was my best friend, but I was going to kill him.

"If you try to turn me back into your Angel of Death again," continued Kuja, "I will not kill you. I will flay you alive. I will keep you alive and I will never ever let you die because no matter how creatively I torture you, you will never experience even a taste of the living hell you wrought for me—"

"Spare me your theatrics," interrupted Garland. "Save it for someone who hasn't heard it all a hundred times before."

"No! You'll hear me out. Cloud and Terra are now reborn as Warriors of Cosmos. You allowed them that ounce of free will. Meanwhile, your chosen Angel is wandering around as he pleases and not once have you ever tried to reclaim him."

"He was perfect," Garland replied, "because he gave me hope I would see my home just once, before I allowed myself to pass on. Here, there is no hope. Here, Kuja, you are perfect."

I didn't have time to think through the conversation that I never, in a million cycles, had a right to overhear. Garland charged away from Kuja and was walking right towards our hiding place.

Bartz and I silently scrambled, but not quickly enough. Garland's eyes fell on me and his cold gaze shrunk me to nothing. A second later, his head was held high. He didn't even break his pace.

Kneeling on the broken ground, I cautiously peeked out from behind our cover. Bartz followed suit.

Kuja was standing there, very still, his face obscured by his long hair and his shoulders rounded in defeat. Then all of a sudden he raised his head and threw his arm out at the hovering Crystal in a casting gesture. White fire and starlight eclipsed the Crystal and imploded.

Bartz shot up like a firework. Hastily I dragged him back down and covered his mouth with my hand. I waited a moment before I dared look out again. Kuja hadn't noticed. His magic dissipated harmlessly, leaving the Crystal as it had always been.

He triggered a wellspring of intricate violet light. I'd never seen him use that kind of magic before, but I knew it wasn't his. I couldn't read it. That, and it looked familiar. Familiar in its own right, and familiar on him.

"Kuja, wait!"

He was gone.

I didn't know why I did that. What did I think was going to happen?

Bartz shuffled out from behind our hiding place. I was so embarrassed at myself. Why was it so hard for me to cut my losses here?

Kuja wasn't some lost and conflicted soul trapped on the wrong side of the battle. He wasn't the chance to turn my memory of blue light into a family here. I already had a family waiting for me.

The rhythm of rain over the ruins of Burmecia. Black smoke and the smell of charred flesh. A sadistic smile twisting an angelic face. A shattered planet. Garnet's tears. That was Kuja.

"Well," said Bartz, "There it is, anyways."

I sure didn't see anything. "Where?"

He looked at me like I'd just hit my head. Only then did it occur to me that he had been talking about the Crystal floating there between us and the empty heavens.

"Oh Bartz," I said quietly. "That's not my Crystal. "

"But it looks just like it!"

Sure did. It looked just like the one we'd seen before. The one we'd never see again.

"It's just part of the fragment. It was the heart of my world and Kuja tried to destroy it for real. When it was real. He tried to destroy everything."

He nodded. He didn't get it. "So like everyone over there with Chaos. But aren't they just drawn to it?"

I shook my head. "Kuja's not drawn to it. He's just selfish and he didn't get what he wanted. There's something you've got to understand, Bartz. I know he saved you. And I know that what—what we just overheard—sounded serious. But the brother I introduced to you was just a lie."

Bartz shook his head. "You don't know that."

"I do know that! I know him better than you ever will. No matter what he tells you, no matter how much you think he's changed, he's only ever thought about himself. He fooled me, you, and even Cosmos."

"He was going to die, if Garland had his way. The way he saw it, it was him or an entire world. Then he learned that none of it mattered. It— it set something off in him. All that work for nothing, the way he saw it. He wanted to be a god. He wanted to be worshipped. But he didn't have either of those things. He was alone. He would die alone, and no one would care. All he had was his life and his power. So if he couldn't go on living, then the rest of the world couldn't either."

That's why Kuja betrayed us. If we had challenged Chaos and won, then what would happen to him? Better to keep living here in the eternal cycle of battle, as much as he hated it, than to die as soon as we returned home.

"You never told me that," he said. I'm not sure if that was what hurt him, or if I'd finally convinced him to stop looking for the light that wasn't there. "That's kind of sad."

All of a sudden I felt empty, like every ounce of anger I'd been building up against him collapsed into regret. I should have known better. Who could know him and expect anything different from him? That was who he was.

Maybe he really did want to fight alongside me. Maybe he really did want to end this once and for all. Maybe, maybe, if only we hadn't talked to the dragon. We should have left well enough alone. We didn't need to understand exactly how this world worked. We were supposed to leave it behind.

"That's why I've got to find that Crystal," I told Bartz. "We're going home, and he's going to make what's left of his life worthwhile whether he likes it or not. He has to make up for everything he did."

He started walking. Time to get out of this place. "Okay, I'm coming over to your world. I'm not missing that."

I took a long and deep breath the instant we stepped back onto the green grass. I looked up at the blue sky, snow clouds to the south, and the raging storm just on the northern horizon.

"Do you want to hear a really long story?" I said then. "You kind of already know how it ends, but it starts with a princess."

Bartz laughed. "Is she cute?"

I glared at him. He held up his hands, no harm meant. Then I cracked a smile. "Just the most beautiful and brave woman I've ever been lucky enough to meet."


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy IX and Dissidia are the property of Square Enix. The people who came together to make these characters and their worlds made their fans a home to which they will always return.

 **CHAPTER SIX**

The spell took me outside the threshold of the Emperor's fragment. I stood there, not a foot from the doorway. I was sure he knew I'd used it, but this was my chance to walk away.

I hadn't expected this. I'd assumed his spell would have taken me straight to him, so he could take advantage of a snap decision.

But Garland had left me there. I chose this on my own.

"What do you want?" I'd said as soon as I could no longer pretend Garland wasn't standing there behind me in the world of memory.

To my dismay, he thought I'd given him permission to take a seat. He anchored himself on a translucent boulder. He even took off his helmet. Instead of a champion of the darkness, I saw the pale and drawn face that defined so many of my cherished childhood memories.

"I don't care what you do with your time, as long as it doesn't interfere with my goals. I do, though, need to know where you'll fall when the time comes."

Goodness, he looked tired. I gave him a hard look. "What are you asking me?"

"If you hadn't disobeyed me, then you would know. After you left, certain individuals grew impatient. Between the fact that the manikins' numbers are dwindling and the appearance of these so-called Crystals, some are dissatisfied with victory on their leader's terms."

And how was that news?

"I'm so sorry to hear that. Tell me, what can I do to help? Wait, don't tell me. Let me try to guess first. Would it be 'nothing'? The correct answer is 'nothing', isn't it. What a fun game."

"I didn't start this," he said. "The Emperor did."

"That's funny," I said, even though it's not. "Your petty squabbles over authority all seemed behind you when you—"

I couldn't bring myself to say it out loud. Even the silence that hinted towards that harrowing day gave the conversation a taut edge.

I found my gaze drawn to the suspended memory of the Crystal. It wasn't there anymore, I reminded myself. It was gone.

Garland got to his feet. Standing behind me, he placed both of his hands on my shoulders. There was the faint clink as metal touched metal. "You should forget about that time."

I shuddered as a gasp of cold washed over me. Red light sank below my skin and numbed me as it spread.

I've heard it said that when you're really, truly freezing to death, your own body will betray you. It will convince you to lie down and succumb to your demise.

No idea if that's true or not. It sounded fascinating. I must have investigated it further at some point, but I couldn't remember.

I should forget about that time.

I tore away from his grip and turned around. I stared straight through to him. The cold burned away like morning mist in the sun.

Old man, you will never win.

"That's right," I said to him. A lightning storm sparked at my fingertips. "You're the one who decides what I should remember and what I should forget. Except I thought I made it clear that I would no longer be your Angel of Death in this world."

"Cool your heels," he ordered me. "When that girl broke free from Kefka, she didn't do it all on her own, did she? She had someone's help. What makes you think you're any different from her?"

I laughed. "And who would have helped me."

"You know what's funny about this world," he said then, as if he were thinking aloud. "If you wanted to stop the cycle of battle and leave, you wouldn't kill Shinryu. You would kill Chaos. If you wanted to take Chaos' throne and remain here, you wouldn't bother with Chaos. You would kill Shinryu. You wouldn't do it yourself, though; what if you didn't survive the battle? No, you would want someone powerful to take on Shinryu for you, preferably someone who wouldn't survive long once Shinryu's control over the cycle ended."

So Garland thought someone saw me as nothing more than a soulless doll under his control, albeit one powerful enough to pit against Shinryu in a bid for Chaos' worthless throne.

"Maybe the one who freed you was someone who wanted you all to himself. Or maybe it was just someone who did it for the same reasons you freed Terra. The girl, I mean."

If I were so valuable, then why did you decide I was so terribly inadequate. You were the one who'd had neither children nor family. You locked yourself away for days at a time while you submerged yourself in your task.

"Go forth, my Warrior of Light," he'd said to me as he banished me from Terra. At least one of us thought it was amusing.

Enough. I stepped through the doorway. I was transported inside.

There, Ultimecia welcomed me with feigned surprise and then hesitation. Pleasantries were exchanged.

It was about as much as I expected. The fragment itself was not.

I'd anticipated soaring columns, gold-plated standards, all ritual of religion and warfare swimming in the abundance of an overwhelming sun.

The interior did force one's gaze upwards: that much held true. Up from onyx and amethyst into an unrelenting darkness. It was cold and exquisite.

I ached to ask the Emperor how his stronghold was made, but I held my tongue. Magic was the obvious answer, paired with incomparable craftsmanship. I surveyed the stones, but they would not give up the story of their making without more dedicated study.

They were old, older than anywhere I've ever been before, save Memoria. They were not unlike Memoria, now that I thought of it. I couldn't accept they were truly so ancient when their design suited Emperor Mateus so perfectly. Maybe it was the other way around: having grown up in these halls, he molded himself to match their majesty.

"What are you staring at?" asked Ultimecia as I lingered. "You've been here countless—"

The Emperor subtly shook his head and gave her a patient look. As if I wouldn't notice.

It's true. I have been here before, not that I was in any position to appreciate the architecture. Under Garland's control, there was no time for such things.

"This?" said the Emperor with feigned humility, as if he hadn't been waiting patiently for me to collect myself. "Pandaemonium was not my family's palace in Palamecia. This became my seat of power later."

Pandaemonium. It was a name I knew well. But the castle of my younger years could not have been more different. It was unsettlingly organic, the coiled and cavernous interior of some primordial beast rotting from the inside out. It had only been half-built by my ancestors' hands; by that point, they'd taught the planet to cultivate the rest on its own.

The Emperor's castle, however, was bewitching in its faceted beauty. "Pandaemonium," I repeated. "How did it earn such a name?"

"It was its name when I came to it," was all he offered in reply.

An odd way to phrase it. Here was an opportunity to make peace. "Your people must have loved you."

He gave an unattached shrug. "They cherished their lives. There was employment for all fit to take it. Their families were safe from invaders and criminals. They always had enough to eat and drink, even if it was not always to their liking."

I walked past the foyer into the grand hall. He followed behind. "You make ruling an empire sound so tiresome…"

"A ruler's duty is as tireless and thankless as a father's. You do things for your people they do not want, even if it's for their own good. You enforce curfews, you tax them to feed the soldiers that protect them. There are only so many resources to go around. With security comes sacrifice."

Ultimecia somehow managed to slip away. I didn't realize this had become a lecture. Still, that was fine. Better that he talked, and that he believed I listened to him.

"What if you didn't have to make those sacrifices," I asked him. "What if you had magic and technology that could provide them with everything? What then?"

He smiled. "Then what use would they have for you?"

"Say you convinced them you were the only one who could give it to them."

"Then you would need to dictate their thoughts as well," he said, considering his words with something sharper than pleasure.

"You would conquer your own people alongside those you've defeated," he continued. "With the same thoroughness of cultivating a garden or learning magic, though, I suppose such a thing would be possible. Their love would give you the greatest security, though fear would be quicker."

"But not all of us were born with the power to decimate entire populations. Some of us had to study, you know," he then said to me.

As if I hadn't. "What, do you think I just stood on the deck of an airship and threw my hands up and rained fire from the sky?"

He paused. "Didn't you?"

I sighed. So this was where it needed to go. "I could have, but those kingdoms weren't my enemy. Garland was my enemy. When I was—well, I was never a child, but when I was very young—he destroyed a small village of summoners because of what power they could summon forth. So years later, when his time was done—"

"His time was done? Was this something you knew as his Angel of Death?"

"He certainly never wanted me to be his true Angel of Death before we came here," I told him. "It was my birthright, as was Terra—our home. I knew I had to use that power. The summoned spirits would never come forth for me, so I had to trick someone from Gaia into calling them. Only then could I steal them and use them against him until he surrendered his rule."

"So you're telling me you wanted him to make you the way you were in prior battles?"

"I didn't know what I wanted," I snapped.

Where did all this talk even come from? I knew I had to prove to him I'd forgotten about the end of the last cycle, but this was overdoing it.

"It was because of him that you finally accepted my invitation, wasn't it? What happened between the two of you?"

I glared at him.

"You don't have to say another word," he said. Then he gave me another one of those uncharacteristically warm smiles. Warmth, and with it, a look of relief, as if my presence lifted a weight from his mind.

"Stay close to me," he continued. "I wouldn't want you to get lost. Firion is the only person who has ever successfully found his way in this place. Chaos alone knows how he did it…"

Then suddenly it struck me. "Firion," I said fiercely. I was thankful for a change of subject, no matter what it may be. "I knew I'd heard his name before."

The Emperor looked at me as if I've lost my mind. "Apart from the battlefield? Is it a common name where you're from?"

I shook my head. "It's a parable," I said as the memory came back to me. "'The Sacrifice of Joseph.' Firion was the leader of a group of rebels who set out in search of some strange artifact they needed to infiltrate the empire's stronghold. One amongst their number was a traitor who had set a trap for them upon their return. One man, Joseph, gave his life to save the rest."

This made him frown. "And what would such a parable serve to illustrate?"

"The story had two different endings. In the first, Firion never told Joseph's daughter about her father's death because he felt so guilty for failing to protect him. In the second, the reporting of his death was inconsequential because his sacrifice spoke for itself."

"Why would a new memory of yours resurface now, outside of battle?"

The question caught me off-guard. "I must have reclaimed it ages ago, but nothing reminded me of it until just now."

"That is what it's like, though. As if it were there all along," he reminded me. "According to my spies' reports, that is in fact exactly what happened. Although they did not provide an explanation for Firion's silence."

"You're joking."

"I assure you, I am not."

"But that tale had been around for centuries on Gaia by the time I came across it. The text it derived from was an epic poem a thousand years old. And here the both of you are, and here am I…"

Here I was, in a castle called Pandaemonium that somehow felt several millennia older than Garland's fortress on Terra. I felt as if the crystal floor under my feet had turned to ice and cracked in half.

It was my first cycle all over again, and I just learned our stalwart, steel-clad commander shared more than my father's name.

The Emperor did not seem nearly as concerned with this train of thought as I was. "When I was a child, I studied everything I needed to rule someday, not just magic. Finance, law, philosophy, politics.

"In the collected essays of an ancient general, she told the story of the mage-soldiers her queen used to conquer the surrounding kingdoms. They were not born from mothers, but created from their land's source of life and discord-spreading magic. Since they were not alive, they worked tirelessly without rest, and were frequently abused by their human captains and even their creator. They had no names, only numbers. They were sacrificed without hesitation, since more could always be made."

I was afraid to ask him for the ancient general's name.

"One by one, they began to develop a sense of themselves. They escaped and built a village in the forest, where they could live in solitude even though they were only fit to wage war.

"When the general realized her queen had gone mad with her lust for power, she allied herself with the young princess and a group opposed to the war. Among their numbers, she was surprised to find one of the mage-soldiers, fighting not just against the treatment of its brothers, but for peace across the entire continent.

"I confess I did not give her writings another thought for decades. When I found the story again, I discovered its singular importance. The general's intended message was that one should never mistreat even the lowest foot soldier, but the creator of the mage-soldiers taught me a more practical lesson: never assume control. Ensure it."

In fact, the only thing the creator learned was that he was no different from those black mages, but now was not the time to correct him.

He made a disappointed noise. "Did you never come across such a story in your land—are you all right?"

No, I was not all right. Realization spread through me, paralyzing me as it went. In some twisted way I could only partially comprehend, my failures had perhaps contributed to his inconvenient need to overthrow Garland. The same need that had inspired Garland to control me and use me.

What did that matter. He was trapped here along with me, wasn't he? What did his empire mean in the end?

"Not in my land," I responded in my own time. "But doesn't it remind you of Sephiroth? Or at the very least, the soldiers beneath him like Cloud. They were so caught up in their company's propaganda it could be said they had no souls of their own.

"An underground current called the Lifestream provided the energy for their weapons, while its force augmented their bodies. It's a less literal interpretation, but still if you take the technology from Sephiroth's home and tailor it to fit the language of yours…"

"What have we stumbled upon," he mused as we continued down the stained-glass hallway.

I kept my mouth shut. What we stumbled upon was another leg of the path I'd found during the beginning of the last battle. It led to the Rift, and the dragon who dwelled inside.

It took me all the way to Cosmos's Sanctuary, and then soon enough, right back to Chaos, with no better advantage than I had before.

"You know Sephiroth removed himself from the field right in front of me," he said then, as if that were common knowledge.

"Removed himself from the field… he didn't kill himself. During the last battle?"

"Yes, it was… actually, I don't recall if it was before or after Cloud challenged Chaos."

He was watching me then, so I kept anything more than passing interest from my face. "I wonder where he got the idea," I replied, as if that report about Cloud was of no importance to me. "Why would he take his own life?"

The Emperor shook his head. "At the time I assumed it was in pursuit of an answer I could have given him—honestly, one even Kefka could have given him. But don't you think he's been strange since he was revived? It has nothing to do with his memories. He's distant, condescending, preoccupied..."

And this entire time, I thought it was all just for me. "So like me, if I were less social. I didn't know he was treating everyone that way."

In a way, I was relieved. If he didn't remember the last battle, then there was nothing for me to fear.

"It's not as endearing when it comes from him."

Sephiroth had always struck me as a deeply intelligent individual who preferred to let others talk. While he was quiet, he was agreeable and friendly, though I was sure I would never earn his true friendship.

In short, Sephiroth was someone I was content to never entirely understand. It was Cloud who gave me enough to piece together his true nature. He was created, not born, same as me.

"Garland made me erase his memories twice," I told him. "He never told me why."

Cloud would have never followed Chaos if his true self hadn't been stripped from him. Perhaps Sephiroth had some unproductive memories of his own.

The Emperor sighed. "It disappoints me that I may have to keep my eye on him. I should not have to expend energy in defense against my own allies."

I stifled a laugh. Seriously, I was standing right there. "I can help you with that, if you'd like."

He drew close and placed his hand on my shoulder. If I was going to have to fight back the instinct to flinch every time he came close to me, the foreseeable future was going to be an eternity in and of itself.

"You should never feel the need to prove yourself to me. You're here under my protection."

His sincerity left something to be desired.

"I'll be blunt," I said then. "Garland attempted to reclaim me as his Angel of Death. Can you protect me from him?"

He appeared amused by this news, as if it were proof to him that he made Garland nervous.

"I can protect you from anyone you will allow me to protect you from," he said to me, "Chaos and Cosmos alike."

And with that mockery of camaraderie over and done with, our conversation faded into the formalities.

I was tired, I lied; I didn't want him to go out of his way for me. But he knew me better than I thought, for the room he led me to left me short of breath.

I stepped over the deep sapphire tiles, my gaze enraptured by the star-filled night sky above. They drifted with their own silent music, a celestial choir. It looked more real than any sky I had seen since I came to this world.

"This is the highest room in Pandaemonium," he said, obviously pleased at the reaction he'd secured from me. "Of course, I would never make my guest walk so far. It shouldn't be hard for you to work the spelled stair back to the ground level."

"You'll find everything here to your liking. Rest," he said, and before I could summon my manners, he shut the doors behind him and left me to my solitude.

As soon as he was gone, the tension I carried with me throughout the entire conversation became unbearable. I released it in a shockwave of blue electricity.

I swept for traces of his magic. It was difficult to sift the response of his signature from the magic imbued in the very air around me, but I sensed nothing. No traps. Just a quiet room, a soft bed… and a small pool.

I walked along its edge. The water was clear, circulating, and hot. This was a miracle far beyond the illusion on the ceiling. Perhaps some of his apologies were genuine.

My boots were off and my feet were in the water before I gave it a thought. I could hardly remember the last time I was given the chance to do something so ordinary and sacred.

Before I came here, certainly. Before my fall, before my despair tore its way through time itself, before Terra, an eternity before I stopped hating my brother.

Why couldn't Zidane have just come when I called him. The one time I ever needed him for anything, he couldn't even do something so simple. And now I would never be able to ask him for anything ever again.

I stopped from immersing myself further. I should know better than to make myself so vulnerable in the Emperor's own home. But who knew when I would next get the chance.

I removed my clothes. The warmth of the water engulfed me with relief.

The way the Emperor treated me was meant to disarm me, but too obviously so. Whatever he planned for me, he wanted me to come to him. He would not make his move tonight. Chaos could wait.

Chaos would always be waiting. An overgrown beast sitting in a chair. It seemed I couldn't allow myself even a moment of peace.

It was the end of my first. The end for me, at least. There was nobody left for me to fight. I had won.

I followed the sickly red glow on the horizon. It was my beacon, night and day. As the rivers and the trees and the grass fell away, the air left the taste of dust and charcoal in my mouth. Then even the weak sun and the shallow moon abandoned me, and there was only the abstract flush of Chaos' flames.

I should have seen his throne far before I reached it, but that wasn't how it worked. Surrounded by nothing more than the blackened surface of lava flows, someone whispered in my ear. I turned my head to the side, and there he was.

I had never seen him with my own eyes, but I couldn't say his loathsome form surprised me. He was a memory rooted deep within my being. I saw him and it was if I were being reminded, yes, of course, this is who was waiting for me all along.

He didn't even move from his seat. He simply studied me, one monstrous palm under his chin, as if I were some curiosity carried in by the searing wind. I could have stood there for a moment, or for an eternity. He knew every shadow in my heart and every treachery against him.

By then, of course, I was beyond courtesies and pride. I set off a constellation of deliberately weak bursts of light. My magic was white and pure.

He endured the assault without stirring. When he came to some private decision of his own, he raised his hand and whipped me with spun hellfire. I panicked and flickered away. Even though I've always been fast enough to escape anything I've wanted to escape, the fire lashed my cheek.

I caught the sickening scent of my own charred flesh. The burn singed my skin and ate straight into my soul like acid, but I refused to give him the satisfaction of hearing me scream.

I laughed. It was a mad laugh that should have carried and echoed grandly, but here it was piteous and small, as if I were the only one there to hear it.

As our battle settled into its terrifying rhythm, I felt sure I had convinced Chaos my abilities were only a fraction of what I knew they were. I withstood his attacks with only feigned difficulty.

Too late it occurred to me his patience had been a gift, one I had squandered.

Chaos' hand darted out and plucked me from the air. His claws formed bars around me. I was trapped in his grasp like a butterfly. He held me up to his face, peering at me with the inquisitive nature of a child.

"Little angel," he murmured to me. His voice was an avalanche. "Why do you challenge me? What grievance of yours is so important to this battle that you have deserted it to come before me? You were created to spark the fires of discord and hatred. You deal in death and wronged souls. You are mine, as truly as the others."

Another time, I would have had a clever response. But I hadn't said a word since I'd won my last fight. I summoned my anger into my palms. Since I was trapped, I diverted it into the air before me. Lightning snapped between his eyes.

He dropped me and howled in pain. I didn't catch my fall perfectly. I landed on my ankle and it rolled under me as I stumbled. The rock scoured my palms and bare skin. My sleeves tore and were streaked with ashes.

Tongues of flame licked at my ankles as I struggled to my feet. Even though I threw my weight onto my unharmed side, I still felt pain shooting up into my leg. I ignored it. I couldn't afford to waste any of my strength on myself.

"You scorn me and renounce me, and yet when you've lost everything you care about, I'm the one you blame. I'm the one who should be granted sympathy, if all my champions are as faithful as you."

"I never asked to be your champion!" I sent a river of light through the air. He found my attempts at genuine holy magic amusing.

"Have you ever considered the possibility that your vessel and soul are not the only manufactured components of your being? Has it occurred to you that perhaps everything from your memories to your tendency towards rebellion was also created?"

He knew me well, at least. White, caustic blight coursed through me, leaving me bare. I felt as if I were about to burn to a cinder. I buckled beneath the weight in my chest.

As the power within me caught alight, an answer came to me. Before me stood a tragic god who desired an end. That much, I could understand. "Then you wanted me to do this all along, didn't you?"

With an ecstatic headiness, light scalded my veins and blistered my throat. This was the power that would have shattered the Crystal itself. Spent and released, I floated to the ground, light as the crimson feathers still drifting in the air around me. A sobbing sigh of relief escaped me.

I wanted to do more. Freeing this world from the oppression of my own abhorrent god, though, was a start. I closed my eyes and, oddly enough, what came to me was a prayer.

I doubted Cosmos would hear me. I could only do good through destruction and death. I could never serve as a replacement for the champion I had taken away from her. I only sought her recognition. I wanted to know that she knew my name. That was all.

Chaos flung me against his throne. I had just enough strength left to save myself as I struck the stone, but I still landed hard. I lay there, wretched. I took in hollow gasps for breaths. Pain pierced my sides whenever I attempted to expand my lungs any further.

I was spent, but I summoned the remnants of my magic. I put my body back together again. I was proud of myself when I staggered to my feet. I believed my second wind was Cosmos' blessing. I was such a fool.

I tried to be strong. I kept my resolve close, closer than I believed Chaos could ever reach. He found it and offered me revelation within my agony: I could never succeed. I had nothing to return to after this. To get what I wanted, someone else besides Chaos needed to die.

My body went slack. Just when I closed my eyes and welcomed the final blow, Chaos stopped. He returned to his seat.

I crumbled at the foot of Chaos' throne. He leaned forward and lifted my chin with a single claw. "I need not command you to play this world's requiem for eternity," he said to me as he forced me to meet his eyes.

"Your own despair will dance you into the darkness, time and time again."

My breath collapsed into a whimper.

He released me. "Garland. Take your son away."

At the sound of Garland's name, I dragged myself up out of the dirt. Who knew how long he had been watching the spectacle.

"Devour him," my father said behind me. "Put him out of his misery. It's all he's desired since you summoned him."

"No." The ground trembled with the force of that simple word.

I heard the steady tread of Garland's armor over the gravel. "I've not yet known you to be cruel," he said softly as he stood over me.

"He is your child. Take him to the Rift, to Shinryu if you wish. You have taught me much, but I still hold to my own definition of mercy."

Without another word, Garland picked me up like a rag doll. I'm not sure whether I passed out or if I simply went somewhere else, but I next remembered being set down on the red threadbare carpet of Chaos' Shrine. I couldn't even sit up without his hand to support me.

"Can you take care of yourself, or do you need me to put you back together again?" he wanted to know.

That was the last time I felt something more than hatred for my father. "I just want to rest," I confided.

He gathered me up into his arms. I felt nothing besides the cold touch of metal, but it was more than I ever expected anyone to show me. "That much, I can help you with," he said to me, and I ached for kindness so much that I kept talking. I should have just shut my mouth.

"No. You can't," I insisted. "It will never end. Not for me. I will never be allowed to stop fighting. That's all I'm wanted for." A sad laugh cracked in my throat. "Remember when you told me I was going to die? Remember when I believed you?"

He cultivated a considering silence for a long time.

"I can offer you relief," he finally told me. "Because you are my creation. I cannot remove your vessel or your soul from battle, but I can take on your burden. Your body will still fight," he continued," but you will sleep."

There was solace in his words. I never thought I would be relieved to hear Garland admit he created me. There was no kindness or sympathy in his ancient eyes when I looked up at him.

I should have relied on my memories of Garland instead. But I trusted him. "Please," I begged.

I let the cold red light take me. I waited for it to drag my senses under and envelop me in its comforting numbness.

Instead, I found myself rising to my feet despite my wounds. Garland cast healing magic over my form with only mechanical care.

He looked into my eyes as if there wasn't anyone looking back, as if I wasn't screaming at him from the depths of my soul. He sent me back out onto the battlefield with my lips sealed and my face an expressionless mask.

Those who asked me why I challenged Chaos were met with silence. If Garland thought they stepped too far out of line, learned too much about the laws that ruled this world, or became too enwrapped in darkness, then he had me sacrifice their lives and their memories to the dragon.

I thought I would be forced to serve Garland as his Angel of Death until someone finally defeated me. And then after that, after I no longer remembered another life, I would simply be his instrument forever more. I would be no different from Terra or Cloud.

Then one day I awoke, and I was free. I never learned who had broken my chains.

'I can protect you from anyone you will allow me to protect you from.'

So be it, Emperor. Take up arms against Garland, against Ultimecia and Kefka, and against yourself, while you're at it.


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy IX and Dissidia are the property of Square Enix. The people who came together to make these characters and their worlds made their fans a home to which they will always return.

 **CHAPTER SEVEN**

Bartz and I walked side by side. We each kept an eye on our surroundings. Even though I remembered the whole story, it took a lot out of me to put it all together and tell it to someone so it made sense.

"So that's it?" he finally asked. "You went into that soul processing tree and talked to your brother one last time and… sorry, not one last time, I didn't mean it like that."

We were in a field. It wasn't that bad, for this place. The grass was almost vibrant, the sun was almost shining. The wind was almost pleasant.

I shook my head. "You might be right. That's the thing. I don't know, and from what he's told me, he doesn't either. But maybe he does. Maybe he's always known how it ends."

"You've got some weird friends," he added. "I'd love to meet them. Since I'm probably going to win, that means you have to introduce me to them all."

I stifled a laugh. "You're calling it this early in the game? Kind of cocky, aren't you?"

"I want to see this Sword of Alexandria! I want to play cards in Treno—hey, by the way, does this mean you're kind of nobility now? Between Queen Garnet and technically being related to that whole King family…"

I would be lying if I said I hadn't given that some thought. It wasn't as painful to imagine the future, at first, but it was a habit I'd had to give up. It was easier to miss everyone as they were, as I knew them.

Suddenly Bartz held out his arm. "Doorway, that way," he said, looking to the right. He squinted at the low grass. "I don't see any manikins, do you? But that would be the point of lying in wait for someone like us to stumble across this apparently undefended doorway… where do you think it goes?" he asked as he set off towards it.

It was hard to tell how he'd even seen the doorway. It wasn't a typical run-down ruin. It was a port, rotting away, in the middle of the grass.

We stepped onto the boards in front of the mirage-like shimmer. None of the others had ever mentioned a doorway like this in the area.

We drew our weapons and stepped into a golden afternoon high in the sky.

Bartz cracked a grin. "This is your airship," he said before I could even tell him. "I know it is. The way you described it, the way you're looking around now—this is it."

I sighed, then looked around, my eyes never resting on any one spot. After all, I already knew what it looked like. I knew every nick, every patch of exposed wood that needed a bit of paint. I never thought I'd see it again, and that was before I left Gaia behind.

He ran out onto the deck. "This is where you performed that play," he said. "What did say it was called? 'I Want to Be Your Canary'. You must be good at learning lines, memorizing a whole play just to kidnap Princess Garnet."

The stage traps still looked like they were in working order. Everything was in working order, or at least working as well as it was the day we'd flown in from Lindblum.

"I already knew them," I told him as I joined him.

We'd all read Lord Avon's plays from one battered book, fighting over the parts we thought would be funniest for us to perform. A badmouthed nursemaid, the hero's flashy and quick-witted friend. Never the lead, unless they were clever: we had Marcus to take the boring parts.

I guess I'd paid pretty good attention to him after all, and not because Lord Avon penned some handy pick-up lines.

I'd had a lot of free time here, and no books. Bartz would have been down for the pick-up lines, but I wasn't so sure about the elaborate performances we'd staged in the big-windowed main room. We pushed all our bunks up against the rail to make balcony seating, even if it was just Ruby and Cinna and Zenero and Benero's brothers and sisters, who were too young to get half the jokes anyways.

We always had trouble finding someone to read the lines of the villains. I wonder what would have happened if Baku had found two instead of one. Would Kuja have gleefully taken the villains' tongue-twisting monologues, or would he have fought with Marcus for the chance to read aloud the elegance of the romantic hero?

He certainly learned all the lines, one way or another. I could only see him reading alone from a crisp and gold-edged edition, hardly ever touched or thrown around or fought over.

"Hey!" said Bartz. "You going to give me the grand tour, or what?"

I rested my hand against the door. I knew what would wait inside. Close quarters, lots of stairs, a carpet with our family name – Tantalus – woven in. Every time Baku told the story of how he'd gotten it in exchange from its artisan, the stakes were higher, the bet larger, the craftsman's feud more ridiculous.

"This is a trap," I said to him. "Why would the _Prima Vista_ be a fragment?"

"I don't know, because it's important to you?"

"You know what I mean," I said. "It's not a place of conflict."

"You just told me that Queen Brahne fired a Bomb onto it after you all escaped with Garnet. It crashed into a forest. A forest that everyone on your continent agreed to actually call 'The Evil Forest.'"

"But not like this," I said as I turned away from the door. I walked back out into the sunlight on the deck. "This is… this is a happy memory."

I looked over the edge and saw Alexandria below. "There's your Sword of Alexandria," I said, pointing down to the ground. "It's still standing. Nothing's happened yet."

"So how could it be a trap? Only you could have this memory," said Bartz.

He had a point. That, and the total lack of any spellwork.

"They've got a way of taking us where the battle wants us to go, these doorways," he reminded me. "Illusion or not, we should investigate."

At that point, he was laying it on a little thick. I didn't need that much convincing.

I showed him everything. My bunk, the wheel, the engine room – his insistence, he said he'd been in quite a lot of them – and even the model of the castle and the Princess Garnet doll, sitting out on the table, surrounded by props and set pieces. It was as if I'd just kept falling one room behind the rest of my family.

In other words, we didn't find anything. It would have been quite something to find my Crystal lying there waiting for me, but I was starting to think that wasn't how this worked.

Soon we were back on the deck, lounging in the sun, wondering what to do next. It occurred to me that this world was not above mocking me. I had just told Bartz my entire story, after all.

He didn't buy that theory. Soon he was back on his feet and messing with the doorway.

I stood up and examined it from further back. "Enter in one place, leave in another," I said. "If the battle is showing us the way to go, then maybe this was just a corridor."

"We don't have to go right away," he said. "We could, you know, plan some strategy. Gather our strength. Take a nap."

"Let's go," I said. This was just a reminder of what I was fighting for.

We emerged in the plaza of a maze-like settlement built from stone that had either started off black as obsidian, or had been made that way by time or warfare.

The ground was dead, as well as mostly everything else that had once grown from it, except for a proliferation of black-tipped thorns. We were deep in Chaos territory.

There was the sound of metal against crystal, of explosive magic. Shouts. We weren't alone.

We saw the manikins before we saw Firion, Cloud and Squall. They had to be outnumbered three to one.

Last time we had seen Squall, he'd been walking away from us, but we didn't have time to gloat over seeing him having joined forces with the others instead of going it alone.

Last time I'd seen Cloud was also the first time I'd seen him on our side of the battlefield. Cosmos must have had a good reason, but she'd been tricked before. I didn't want to mistrust him.

"Over here!" Bartz shouted.

He got their attention, but he also got the manikins' attention as well. The three of them took advantage of that split second of diverted focus and took out a group of them. Crystal fell to the ground like the glass of a broken window.

Bartz drew his sword and cut down another. I took down two. The other three had done all the hard work; these were ready to shatter.

It was funny. Usually manikins were either a mix, whether random or thought-through. The point was, they were never identical. Here, all the manikins imitated Cloud.

"Let's go before more show up," said Squall. He was right.

We urged them through the doorway first. They were bleeding, all of them. After a bit of misplaced concern and bravado, they gave in. Bartz and I cleared out the last of them before we followed them through to the _Prima Vista._

Once they were inside and tending to their wounds, we cornered them.

"What the heck were you doing that deep in Chaos territory?" Bartz demanded. "Nice to see you guys, by the way."

"We're looking for something," answered Squall. Cloud just crossed his arms and stared out the porthole, but I knew he was still in on the conversation.

"No kidding," I said. "Your Crystals."

Squall made a face. "Not exactly." Then he looked to Firion.

Firion had gotten to his feet and was examining a vase of glass flowers. He singled out one, a gnarly sort of rose with its petals tipped in pink.

For a second, his rough hand held the base of the rose. He took it out of the vase and examined the handiwork before he placed it back among the others in the bunch.

"Squall and Cloud are helping me look for one of my weapons. The blood weapon. It helped me defeat him the last time."

"It's here, I know it is. If I remember," he said, "then he remembers. He's keeping it in his fortress. We'd just found the doorway to it. We were going to infiltrate it, when we were attacked. We fell back into the ruins. That's when you found us."

"By 'him', you mean the Emperor, don't you," I asked him.

I had been awhile since I'd had a real run-in with the Emperor, except for when Kuja had betrayed us to him and his allies.

It wouldn't be the worst if the Emperor were taken off the board. Even if this weren't the last go, for some reason, it would be safer if he didn't remember the past cycles.

"He's been on the battlefield for a long time," I said. "He's caused us a lot of trouble. You can count on me."

Bartz shot me a look, but dropped it before the others noticed.

"You don't need to do that," said Firion. "We can't risk so many of us."

"The more there are, the less of a risk it is," I replied. "Besides, how well did getting to the doorway go the last time?"

"He's got a point," Cloud interjected. "Zidane and Bartz have skills we don't." He caught his words, then apologized to Bartz. "Just assumed you guys were a package deal," he added.

"We kind of are," he said with a shrug.

"Let me think about it," said Firion. "We'll need a new strategy." He went back outside. Squall paused before following him out. I decided I'd get a word in with Cloud before he did the same.

"Cloud, what happened to you?" I asked him. "You're a mercenary, right?"

"Yeah," he answered. "I used to be a soldier. Where I got my training… we became aware one day, each under different circumstances."

That sounded weird, but I decided to go with it. "Became aware? How?"

"Do you remember being born?" he asked me, but he didn't sound like himself. He didn't really look like himself, either, but I wasn't staring right at him. I kept looking ahead, afraid what would happen if I turned to him.

"No, not really," was the response that came to me, except I don't think I said it out loud. All the same, it was my voice that had said those words.

"It was the same with me. I just woke up one day... and there was a human body lying next to me. His body was covered in blood. It scared me... I didn't know what it meant. I ran as fast as I could. When I looked around, I was far away from the front line. "

Just when he was starting to come into focus, the black mage left me.

Vivi had come out of nowhere. One minute we were in the thick of it, battling on these same boards to kidnap Garnet. Then we crashed in the woods. He'd protected her, even though he was as lost and scared as the rest of us.

He was just a kid. No matter what I learned about how he'd come about, after, that's who he was.

Someone grabbed my shoulder. I turned around to see Bartz and Cloud staring at me.

"Does he do that a lot?" said Cloud, eyeing me with suspicion. Suspicion, but also honest-to-goodness concern. "Ever do that in the middle of a fight?"

"I'm just tired," I told the both of them. "Come grab me when Firion's thought things through, all right?"

I headed off to my old bunk. It was unmade, just as I'd left it that morning.

I wasn't sure what it was in Cloud that made me think about the black mages. I didn't know enough about him, but Cosmos' faith in him was good enough for me, for now.

In the end, Firion decided he'd rather have us and not need us than the other way around. I was the last one out of the doorway. When I walked through, I felt something sting on the inside of my wrist. I pulled down my glove and looked at my skin: a faint glyph, already fading. Something told me I wasn't saying goodbye to the _Prima Vista_ just yet.

We were on guard as we followed Firion through the blackened ruins, but there wasn't a single manikin waiting for us.

"Hey Firion," said Bartz. "Just curious. Why are you so intent on going after this blood weapon? Cosmos told us to find our Crystals."

Firion paused. It looked like he was about to brush off the question. He'd explained himself to Cloud and Squall. Their presence already proved the worthiness of his cause. We'd already had our chance to doubt him.

That was why Bartz had waited, of course. It was his way of letting Firion know he was with him, no matter what.

"The Emperor burned my home to the ground," Firion finally said. We knew that much already. He'd led an army of rebels to victory. It was a familiar tale.

"We ran into the woods to escape. He sent his soldiers after us. They ran us down, even though we couldn't have hoped to win. Not saying we didn't fight. My friend Leon fought harder than the rest of us. So they took him, and left the rest of us to die."

"We didn't die, but when we saw Leon next, we knew he had, in his own way. The Emperor had done something to him: tortured him, bewitched him, something. Turned him to his cause."

I'd never known him to be half so talkative.

"He either did a good job, or a bad one. The Leon I knew never would have turned on his own like that, but the Leon who followed the Emperor wanted to take his place. We got him back. It took a while, but…"

He shook his head. "We thought we'd defeated the Emperor. He just came back, more powerful than before. So that's why we need the blood weapon. I can't just rely on the Crystal. "

Firion walked us up to the base of an exposed rock face and stopped us outside the mouth of a cave. "It's not that far in," he said.

He led the way, checking for physical and magical traps. Squall followed close behind. Cloud hung back behind Bartz and me. He kept his eyes open, but if this was an ambush, we were sunk.

It seemed, though, that Chaos really thought they had chased us off. There wasn't even a single manikin lurking in the shadows.

"This is it, right?" asked Squall as he reached out to a patch of air. It moved around his hand as if he'd submerged it in liquid.

Firion nodded. "When we get in, the fortress will try to deceive you. The monsters and demons are gone, I expect, and replaced with manikins. Magic forms the stairways and the halls. As long as we don't use too much, the Emperor shouldn't notice us."

He didn't say a word about that earlier. It was Oeilvert, all over again, but this time I was the one who could get us all in trouble.

"I know the way," he reassured us. "We'll be fine as long as we stay together. Zidane, no matter how pretty it looks inside, don't touch anything."

"You made a joke," I said to him. "I'm proud of you."

He smiled. "But really, don't."

We stepped out onto the edge of what might have been a crater. Firion didn't move. He just stared. There was still a castle, don't get me wrong. It was in pieces all around us.

Bartz finally broke the silence. "Guys, this place is wrecked."


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy IX and Dissidia are the property of Square Enix. The people who came together to make these characters and their worlds made their fans a home to which they will always return.

 **CHAPTER EIGHT**

Garland was looking for me. At least, that's what I'd been told to keep me from trying to leave. It was all unnecessary. I had everybody I wanted here.

I've noticed that my strength was a fraction of what it's been. Surely, the Emperor's constant comments about my rest and recovery had nothing to do with it.

I laid my hand on the stonework. I closed my eyes. Instead of growing warm under my touch, the stone became colder. I ignored it and reached further.

Suddenly my head swam. The line broke. I pushed myself away from the wall. My feet lagged behind. My own magic had already risen up in my defense, like a body fighting off infection. In my case, like a body that had no hope of fighting off an infection.

"The castle has restorative powers for those who are receptive to them. I encourage you to meditate in your room," the Emperor had told me. "You will find it…"

I didn't listen to the rest of what he had to say. I refused to do such a foolish thing until I knew more about this castle.

The Pandaemonium in which I spent my first years was more than a poorly-lit relic with an intimidating name. It was a waiting place for all the souls of Terra while they waited for their world to be reborn. Pandaemonium was the underworld from which I had been plucked.

I wasn't alone. I couldn't allow Kefka to see me like this. I steeled myself and corrected my posture.

"Kujie," he beamed. "Just the wingless bird I was looking for. Don't wingless birds tend to go extinct? They're just so easy to hunt once a predator's been introduced into their sheltered environment—I digress. I've been thinking about this rift that's come between us. I want my old friend back, don't you?"

That could have meant a thousand different things. "Let's repair that broken bridge," he continued. "Why don't you help me reclaim her?"

Of course that was what he was after. He'd figured out how to torment me again. It was his favorite pastime.

"I don't think it's a good idea for me to leave this fragment," I said. "Garland is still looking for me." It would have been something to smile at him then, to let him know that I saw through the false information, but that wasn't what I needed the most out of this conversation.

"Neither do I," he replied, "which is why you won't have to. I'll lure her here, and we'll do it together."

If he thought he could continue to corner me like this, he might not be here for much longer. How difficult would it be to harness Terra's nascent abilities against him?

But just as I was about to agree, he jumped ahead and went off-script.

"I'm supposed to be playing nice," said Kefka. "So don't push me. I'll probably run into Garland the next time I'm out."

"You'll do no such thing." The Emperor's voice came down from the upper landing. Kefka looked up at him. I watched Kefka.

"How shortsighted can you be?" the Emperor continued. "How could that flighty girl be of more use to you than your own ally?"

Kefka didn't seem very offended by the Emperor's reprimand. His lips twisted into a conniving smile. "It's the principle of it," he sneered all the same.

He left without another word. In spite of the previous conversation, the Emperor let him go.

There was something very odd going on.

The Emperor sauntered down the stairs. "Never mind him. He'll get over it, in time."

"Time?" I repeated. "He'll forget about it when he's been given something better. Whether that happens tomorrow or ten years from now will not change the time in between."

He nodded. "It's good to be able to speak with you like this again."

That was enough. "What are you talking about? In seven cycles we have never spoken to each other any more than necessary," I said. I kept my voice gentle. This was a joke we were both in on, and that was all right.

He looked at me as if he were capable of sadness. "You must be tired. I'm not surprised. The effects of what you've been through may never leave you as long as we remain in this world."

That had nothing to do with it. "You mean the effects of what you did to me."

"What I did to you—Yes." He turned fierce. "I saved you from your brother and tore that Crystal out of your body before it killed you!"

He dared say it as plain as that. A laugh escaped me. "Is that what you thought you were doing? Or is that simply what you've decided to tell me—"

His open stare stopped me cold. Vulnerability looked so impossible on him.

"The Crystal wasn't going to kill me," I said to him. I couldn't bring my voice much past a whisper.

"You forget that Cosmos is the cruel mother of Chaos," he said to me. "The Crystals are her greatest weapons against us. In this place they are inimical to our nature. How she could convince you to absorb one into your very body…"

"We knew that brother of yours had some hold on you. He poisoned you and turned you against us. Did you think we wouldn't notice something was wrong?"

He closed the distance between us and touched my face. The metal on his gauntlet grew no less cold as it rested on my skin. I looked up at his painted eyes, grim despite the splendor.

"It was you who avenged me, wasn't it? You sacrificed his memories to the dragon," I said to him.

He touched the feathers at the base of my scalp, then traced my hairline. He lifted my gaze up to his. Just his way of letting me know he did it all for me. Was it his plan to suffocate me?

"We never should have left you alone. Your memories have been altered by your brush with the Crystal. Your actions been imbued with foolish intent where there was none, to deal with the shock of losing the Crystal from your system. Everything will straighten itself out soon," he assured me.

What a ridiculous story. Zidane would never do something like that. We didn't even know if the Crystal could be absorbed into my vessel at all, it was hardly a sure bet.

I needed to find Bartz. The Emperor had done away with Zidane's memories, but there were still his, as well as Squall's, if he felt like talking. I couldn't believe Bartz would let Zidane be talked into doing something so cruel.

Zidane and I weren't that different, when it came down to it. Would I have done that, in his place?

I would have felt bad about it. But it would be just the thing I would have come up with. Used my brother's desire against him.

That wasn't possible. He couldn't have kept it up through all we'd done together. The manikins, the dragon, Cosmos—and Chaos. He couldn't have. That wasn't him.

I needed to find Bartz. I needed Bartz to tell me the truth.

"I think it's time for me to leave," I said then.

The Emperor stepped back. "I think it's time for you to rest for awhile," he said to me.

He nodded towards the stairway that was spelled to take me to my room. "I know you're anxious to return to the battlefield, but some things are more important. This battle won't last forever."

"No," I agreed. "It won't."

How dare he tell me such a stupid lie, straight to my face. How dare he touch me.

A figure entered the hallway. It must have seen us, because it withdrew somewhat, though not out of sight entirely.

"Please," the Emperor said to me before he stepped away. "Sephiroth, thank you for meeting me here."

I stepped into the enchanted doorway and waited for the Emperor's attention to be completely focused on his conversation with Sephiroth. In another situation, I would have lingered, possibly ingratiated myself into their talk. But this was the best chance I would get.

Bartz would never lie to me. Not with the way he looked at me. So what, then, if he told me the same story?

I left the doorway. I scanned the upper landing and only moved when I was sure it was unoccupied. The Emperor and Sephiroth were still accounted for, but who knows if Kefka really left, and there was always Ultimecia. Even a manikin could make this difficult.

The grand staircase changed on me halfway down. The scale of the room narrowed and stretched thin. The temperature grew colder and the air turned stale. I set my hand on the rail. It was solid to the touch, and solid to any initial magical inquiry. No illusion.

I looked back. The stair continued in the style of the new room. I had never seen this part of the castle before. I took a step back: whatever magic had transported me had receded.

This was a problem. My dormant magic hadn't even tried to protect me.

The power in this place had been getting under my skin from the beginning. In my current state, there was no distinguishing it from the magic I had been breathing in since I first arrived.

I just needed to focus, that was all.

When I reached the bottom of the stairs, I was transported again. Another room I had never seen before, no surprises there. There were no stairs this time, but something like sunlight drifted down from the high windows.

I teleported up to the stained glass. I could see nothing through it, but it was bright. I drifted through.

The next room had no more light than a day on its last gasp, but it was changing. I looked up. Stars were beginning to illuminate the space. Here, at last, was a room I knew well.

I stepped back, reaching for the window and the room I had just left. The stained glass was gone. The portal to the enchanted stairway that took me to the lower levels was gone. It was just a wall.

The spell imbued into the floor awakened. I barely escaped it in time.

"Damn it!"

I watched the spell unfold from across the room. Sleep, binding. The Emperor's magic, no doubt about it. It wasn't just the work dormant in the castle. He'd done this recently.

There was another component. I wasn't sure what it was, though I could be sure it was something nasty.

The doorway reappeared in the wall. The Emperor was on his way to see what he'd caught in his trap. I didn't doubt; there wasn't time. I teleported across the room and bolted through it.

I knew by now not to expect that I would be back in the lower levels I knew so well. When something grabbed my wrists and ankles, I was ready for it.

My purifying light cleared away the snares. I teleported blind across the room; another trap had been waiting for me the moment I would have stopped to catch my breath.

"No point in pretending I wasn't trying to leave, now is there?"

"No point in trying, either." The Emperor responded. He had a good grasp on faking regret. "What I do now, I do for your own good. I will save you, I swear."

He grimaced and drove his staff into the floor. The floor, in turn, rose up around me into stalagmites. I was trapped.

The glass of Pandaemonium bled out its poisonous violet hue and left me surrounded by dismal, crumbling grey under wide, tumultuous skies. The Emperor's regained his footing, with Ultimecia and Kefka at his side.

"You've brought this upon yourself," Garland told me as he planted his great gauntleted hands on my shoulders. He forced me down on the stone slab like a ritual offering, while the others branded binding spells onto my limbs. The brute force lacerated my skin.

Garland pressed his palm to my forehead. A searing red light eclipsed my vision.

I floated in the air above the Chaos Shrine, blind outside of my body. I heard my voice scream crimson fire and helplessness like I have only heard an entire world's worth of souls scream. It took all four of them to extinguish the breathless fount of light.

Then the Emperor reached into the rift inside me and ripped out my heart.

When he faded away, the floor was littered with small red feathers.

Black boots crushed them under heel; black gloves slipped under my white sleeves and firmly pulled me upright.

That wasn't right. Sephiroth hadn't been there.

"If we're leaving, then we're leaving now." There was something oddly assuring about the steady cadence of Sephiroth's reserved voice. He waited for me to find the sense to move. I trembled, stranded in the powerless wake. It was a miracle I was even standing.

Finally he made an impatient noise and shoved me forward. I stumbled on the slick floors. I found my footing and hurried through a dark doorway reverberating with strands of green light. I had been to the Lifestream once before. It reminded me of the spirit well beneath the Iifa Tree.

His soul—the Emperor's soul—

"Thank you," I remembered. Industrial brickwork replaced the subterranean aurora. He gave me nothing more than a short, courteous sound in reply. He didn't do it to gain my gratitude. Sephiroth had his own principles.

"The Emperor was playing a game with you. He believed you are the key to the Promised Land."

"The Promised Land. Of course." I took credit for being a lot of things, but I could not honestly claim that.

He didn't miss the sarcasm. "Do you know why we're all here?" he asked sharply.

"I haven't been given an answer to my satisfaction, no."

"Don't expect one. We were summoned to fight and to be defeated and to fight again, so that our conflict may feed Chaos until he has enough power to tear the boundaries of this world apart and return to his home. Disappointing, isn't it?"

I was only half-listening. "Yes, disappointing…" But even more so than that, it sounded terribly familiar.

He watched me think for a moment before he pulled me back. "I'm sure you've noticed the common threads that appear time and again in our memories. Certain moments, figures, names, only slightly changed."

"So if our god requires the rage of a thousand battles to find his way home, then what are the chances one of us has done something like it and already succeeded? After Chaos, you have the closest relationship with Garland."

Did this have something to do with him taking his own life?

Now I was watching him. Maybe I should have taken my chances with the Emperor. "So you think the truth will undo me?"

I had to admit, it worked once.

Sephiroth laughed. "Don't be so paranoid. I have no intention of letting anyone use you the same way Shinra wanted to use me."

When Cloud mentioned Shinra, it frustrated him that he could only recall an uncomfortable, ill-fitting hatred. That hatred must have belonged to Sephiroth.

Every Warrior of Chaos could come up with a reason to be on my side. It's that common thread, as he said. It didn't mean I was ready to forget the detached way Sephiroth examined me in the Chaos Shrine.

Though perhaps he was only then piecing this together. Sephiroth played a more enigmatic game when he was deliberately helping me than the Emperor did when he was plotting.

The floor under me solidified into stone, then a metal catwalk. Pipes and tanks flanked us. "If you are helping me, then tell me why you've taken me to Kefka's fragment."

Sephiroth stopped and leaned against a metal railing. I stared back at him, puzzled, before he prompted me onwards. Then it drew me in.

'It' must have been a hideously malformed Cloud of Darkness-shaped manikin. Someone had reached inside of it and pulled its organs out of its abdomen. Only, the Cloud of Darkness had no true anatomy, and the swelled tissue never could have fit within its thin frame.

There was an inscription on the headplate, but its words shuffled and changed when I concentrated upon it.

"Would you call her beautiful?" Sephiroth asked me.

I was careful not to hold my tongue for too long. "Who is she?"

"Mother," he replied with gentle reverence. Somehow, inexplicably, it did look like him.

He drew up beside me and placed his hand lovingly on the glass. How could someone who so carefully understood this world have so utterly lost his mind? Little wonder he didn't care for the Emperor's plans. This 'Mother' was his goddess, his compass, his Cosmos.

"You were born here," he said, his gaze still transfixed by the manikin. "And I am there now. I'm watching you learn. I'm watching your creator discover your flaws, watching you fail in his eyes."

"You were unacceptable... I feel pity for you."

He turned on me. "You're not even beautiful. The color of your eyes is weak. Your imperfections left over from inferior strains of DNA..." His gaze dissected the feathers in my hair and moved down to my hips.

"I was intended to be this way."

"I'm sorry to hear it."

"No matter. We each have our own ideals and idols."

"But you don't even fulfill your own," he said, the curl of the hatred in his smile sharpening his words. "Your world was corrupt, and sick, and died for it. Then Garland made you, and you weren't even good enough to bring such a weak pulse back from the brink. And here we are, suffering for it."

I swore the manikin twitched in response. A manikin would never attack me.

"Don't you dare look at her. Look at me," he commanded me with cold lucidity.

I took a step back. I breathed in slow, from the bottom of my lungs, but only the dimmest embers remained. There was no chance of defending myself against him unless I somehow tranced again.

I may as well have hoped for the moon to fall out of the sky. "What would you have me do now?" I asked him.

"Know I do not wish the fate of a soulless weapon upon you. However, your past fuels your magic. Without your memories, you're no more powerful than the others. That is how it works, isn't it?"

An onslaught of boots drummed the catwalk above us. Sephiroth leaned in towards me. "Remove yourself from the battle. This is your only warning." He pushed me backwards. I caught myself, but too late I realized he'd put just enough distance between the two of us.

"Kuja!"

Zidane?

Sephiroth's blade caught the laboratory's light like a long sigh.


	9. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy IX and Dissidia are the property of Square Enix. The people who came together to make these characters and their worlds made their fans a home to which they will always return.

 **CHAPTER NINE**

The longer I stared at the wreckage, the more surreal it looked. Gemstone rubble formed dunes around us, ranging in size from gravel to entire columns and statues.

Not twenty feet away from us, the ground opened up into a pit. The underground levels of the castle had been wrecked as well, revealing whole cross-sections of the rooms and halls.

"The fragments recover quickly from the damage of our battles," said Firion in disbelief. "It should be impossible for someone to destroy them outright."

"Maybe this world's getting weaker," said Squall. "The influence of order isn't what it used to be. This may have been the Emperor's stronghold, but…"

"You still think your blood weapon's here?" Cloud said to Firion.

Firion looked down into the pit. "I'm going to go take a look. Everyone be on guard," he said, but I had the impression he was only speaking to Bartz and me.

If anyone knew how to find a precious artifact, it would be me. I hopped down into the pit, gauging the stability of each level before I moved further. Bartz didn't waste any time.

"Where are you two going?" Cloud called after us. "What the hell," he said more to himself, then followed behind.

Something smoldered in the corner of my eyes. A spark, a fragment of a word. Ruin, it murmured to me, pretty appropriately. It snuffed out like an ember, pulverizing a brick into gravel before it did.

Purples, indigos, black. Something stuck out. Something red.

"Whatever did this, it's still going," said Bartz. "Zidane, if this is unstable, maybe we should fall back for a little while. Not like Firion's weapon's going to walk off… Zidane?"

It was trapped under the rubble. I knelt down and scrabbled in the gleaming dust. It was fragile, and if I weren't wearing gloves, it would be soft to the touch. It was a bright red feather, still simmering with power.

I cupped it in my hands. It clung to me a little bit, as if there were some static force at play that just connected it and myself.

"An eruption of anger against one's surroundings induces a complete Trance. It's not the will to live, nor is it the desire to protect another."

That's what my brother thought a Trance was. But anger had a way of taking its form from other emotions. Especially with him. Shame, desperation. Fear.

The magic I'd seen Kuja use had to have been the Emperor's, and it had brought him here. I didn't know what Kuja would have wanted with the Emperor, or what the Emperor wanted with him anymore.

What had made him trance?

"Zidane—" said Bartz, with enough urgency to bring me back to my surroundings.

He beckoned me over to an alcove, where I identified Cloud by his spiky hair. There was a weird greenish glow cast over his armor and clothes.

"Hey," I called over. "What've you got there?"

He didn't hear me. He stepped through as if entranced. The glow began to fade.

Bartz scrambled. "Come on!" he shouted at me.

There wasn't time to tell Firion or Squall. They were smart, they'd figure it out. I jumped through the doorway just as it closed.

The doorway took us to the Lifestream. It reminded me of the Iifa Tree. All that was missing were the roots and the nerve edge of the Mist. That, and the draw deeper.

The Iifa Tree was the Lifestream, if Cloud's world had been left to run feral. This place had no use for me.

Cloud didn't wait up for us. He had a determined expression on his face, but also a distracted one. Bartz and I shot each other a look, and then set off after him.

The light of the Lifestream had its own rhythm, and came and went as if it were the symptom of some deeper process. "It is not produced," I heard someone say.

"Did you hear that?" I muttered to Bartz.

"Uh, what?" he asked. He didn't stop. "How long does this tunnel go for, anyways?"

"That voice," I told him.

"Mist is a by-product of the refining process," it continued. "It is discharged through the roots. I contaminate the other continents with Mist to stimulate the fighting instinct."

I shook my head. "Never mind," I said to Bartz. "I was just imagining it. This place is creepy."

"Tell me about it," he said. "What do you think's up with Cloud?"

I didn't have an answer for him.

"This, in turn, leads to war among the leaders of nations, and then to the fall of civilization. Kuja merely puts the by-product to a different use… I cannot lie. Kuja used the waste product to make weapons. Weapons like yourself… dark spawn of the Mist.

"Defeat me, and no more Mist will flow. And then no more weapons like this puppet here will be made."

"Answer me, puppet. Do you deny your very birth?"

"That voice?" said Bartz. We all heard that last part out loud. It didn't sound like the Soul Cage. It sounded like someone whose voice I've heard more recently: cool, calm, completely heartless.

Cloud had stopped. He was holding his hands up to his temples. "Sorry guys, I just…"

It was the first thing he'd said to either of us. "Let's get out of the Lifestream," I said. We didn't want to stick around here for much longer.

I looked ahead. The quality of light changed. It looked manmade. A fragment connected to another fragment. That was rare. "I think there's a doorway coming up."

Bartz sped up to catch up to Cloud. "Come on," he said. He clapped Cloud on his shoulder. "Let's get out of here."

"Yeah," said Cloud as he composed himself. "Sure thing."

The sound of my feet on the ground changed. The tunnel evened out from a cavern into something more like a sewer. A close hallway, no natural light.

The room opened up into a multistory laboratory.

"Back here?" said Bartz with a weary sigh. "I'm starting to get sick of this."

I was about to ask him what he was talking about, when metal flashed beneath the gaps in the grid under my feet. A cry – Kuja's.

I jumped the safety railing. I caught a pipe on the way down with my tail to steady myself. I hit the ground just as Sephiroth pulled his blade from Kuja's bare stomach.

He fell back against a concrete pillar and sank to the ground, cradling his body tight. Blood seeped out from between his fingers and stained his pale skin.

Sephiroth flicked the blood from the metal as Cloud landed heavy on the catwalk between us. Cloud got his bearings and glanced over his shoulder at me.

"What are you waiting for?" he yelled at me before he drew up his sword into a two-handed guard. "Back me up!"

Bartz ran down the narrow metal stairs. I caught his eye and fervently shook my head: we'd just seen what Sephiroth was ready to do. Under no circumstances did we want to force him to fight his way out. We had to think of something else.

Bartz obliged and ducked out of sight.

"Hello, Cloud," said Sephiroth in an uncomfortably familiar tone.

"So it was you who called me through that doorway. Why have you been messing with me," Cloud demanded. "I don't know you. I only know your name because the others told me."

"That's not true," Sephiroth replied. "You see me when you close your eyes. And you hear me when there's nobody else. Don't you…"

I knelt down at Kuja's side just as it hit me there was nothing I could do. He exhaled something that sounded like it could have been my name. He looked at me with either reluctance or delirious pain.

Bartz ran in from the other side. "How're you holding up?" he asked Kuja as he took his bloodied hands into his. Carefully he lifted them away. When he saw the placement of the wound, he swore softly.

He replaced Kuja's hands, returning the pressure. "Okay, where are we with that magic of yours?"

Kuja shuddered. He shook his head. Another small red feather clung to his silver hair.

"He tranced. He's tapped out," I replied. "He's still conscious, so there might be something left, but—"

Kuja looked right at me. "You can do it," he told me with fading ferocity. "Garland gave us both… if you want it, it'll…"

"What's he talking about?" asked Bartz.

"I should be able to perform any magic he can," I said. "But I haven't studied, not like him—"

If it's what I really want, it will happen. Easy for a mage to say.

He was breathing too fast, his skin was so cold to the touch. I had to save him. I had to _want_ to save him.

I shook my head. "It's—I don't think I can—it's hard—"

The flickering light in Kuja's eyes leapt into an inferno. "No it's not! You really want to deal with me without my memories, then go ahead, let me die. I won't know better. But if you want to see anyone you ever gave a damn about ever again, you'll need me. So help me!"

"Don't talk like that," I think I heard Bartz tell him. My mind was a thousand years away. What did I do in the Iifa Tree? I just shielded him, didn't I? Wasn't that all it needed to get the hint?

I looked up for the first time and a horrible nightmare stared back at me. It might have been a manikin once, but it had taken on a form I'd never seen before.

Suddenly I was staring into an ancient, long dead sun. Old Terran seared itself into my eyes. Nerve built like a tidal wave and I pushed it back own. I couldn't let him die. He was right. I needed him.

"Hey, you can do this," said Bartz. "Just focus up a bit, all right? Cloud's got Sephiroth covered. This is all you need to be thinking about."

I thought of Garnet's spells. She used to clean up the worst of my scrapes and bruises. It would feel like a perfect breeze coming off the ocean, cool water on a hot day, the comfort of a familiar face in strange territory.

I managed a spark, just enough to rally Kuja's own magic. Listless white wisps of light grabbed onto the Terran spark and used its power to unfurl over the wound.

"I did it!" I exclaimed. "Did I—did I do it?"

His hands fell. The light scoured the wound and the organs beneath first, then after that, twisted itself into glowing thread and stitched the wound closed.

Cloud's shadow fell over us both as he was pushed back. I flinched as his sword blocked Sephiroth's blade. I scrambled to my feet to help him just as his sword shattered into pieces and assaulted Sephiroth from every angle. Just as quick, they snapped back into the hilt by the force of some gravitational spell.

Sephiroth stopped his advance. His wounds made the one he gave Kuja look like a paper cut, but he wasn't bleeding. Under his coat, he was gleaming like ice… or like crystal.

Kuja hesitantly grazed his now-unbroken skin with shaking hands. Then he stared, transfixed, at the bloodstain on his white skirt. "Why don't I just start wearing red," he murmured.

He lifted his head a little, turning to Bartz. "Thank you," he said graciously as Bartz helped him to his feet. Kuja didn't even protest.

I stared at the both of them as if they'd both starting speaking some Northern dialect. "Hey, what about me?"

"For what?" he snapped. "Bartz would have taken care of it himself if he could."

He was angry at me. Why was he angry at me? I was the only one who was allowed to be angry.

It hit me that I'd been going about this the wrong way.

Just then the deformed manikin inside the tank threw itself against the glass. Kuja cast his hand out in front of us but only a few sparks of defensive light ignited at his fingertips. His arm shook with the effort.

I drew my daggers. This time when the energy surged to the surface, I let it.

The crack split like a spider web and then the liquid inside emptied onto the floor. The manikin ripped itself free of its organs and most of its female form, but kept its face.

Cloud fell back to us. He watched the manikin, waiting for it to make its move, but he was also staring at it like he'd seen it before somewhere.

For a second it was just that face on a shapeless, faceted mass. Then its shoulders broadened, its hair lengthened and spiked up on each side of its forehead. It grew a long, tailored coat. It held out its hand and the crystal built on itself, snapping into place until it wielded a long blade identical to Sephiroth's.

The manikin cut him down. He didn't fight it, or even evade. It might as well have been an execution. He lost the black of his coat, the silver of his hair, and the green of his eyes in the instant before he shattered.

The manikin stood up straight and suddenly, Sephiroth was standing in front of us once again. He looked pleased with himself.

"Cloud," he said, "Do you remember something like this?"

The energy inside me refused to be ignored. I could see it crackling in my hands, plain as the laboratory around us. It welled up from the bottom of my lungs into my throat, where it intertwined with my waiting voice.

I was both paralyzed and aching to fight. A wave of rolling lightning obscured my vision. I wasn't sure if it was really there or if I was the only one who could see it.

Kuja shoved me to the side. The shock brought me back. He stared at me, unsmiling, with a calculating expression I'd seen before.

Sephiroth was gone.

"What the hell," Cloud exhaled. He wasn't moving. He was just standing there, staring at the broken manikin.

Bartz looked at the both of us, then went over to him. "I don't think we should stick around," he said quietly.

"Look, I'm sorry it took me awhile to get it right, I haven't exactly done that before," I told Kuja softly.

"Shut up, don't remind me." Something told me he wasn't talking about the specific incantation.

"How does he know how to get into my head?" Cloud muttered.

"Well, you _did_ used to belong to Chaos," Bartz began. He probably knows you pretty well—"

At that, Kuja tried to scramble to his feet. I blocked him easily. "Sorry, do you have somewhere else you need to be right now? Do you need to head back to Garland?"

As soon as it slipped out of my mouth, I want to take it back. Almost.

"Safer with him than I am with you," he shot back. Then he closed his eyes and wilted against the rail. I barely caught him before he collapsed to the ground.

He didn't know what he was saying. He'd just tranced and then been stabbed. That would make anyone a little mixed-up. He didn't really think that was true.

"We're done here," said Cloud. He sheathed his sword on its magnet and nodded over to Kuja. "What's he worth to them? Can we keep him locked down on the _Prima Vista_?"

"You're suggesting we take him hostage?" said Bartz, wide-eyed. "I don't know how that'll work, but—"

"It'll work just fine," I said. Not because I thought we could lock him up on the _Prima Vista_. There was nothing we could do to keep him on the fragment if he had even half a mind to leave. But he had exhausted himself. That would give us one good, honest talk.

"Great," said Cloud. He scooped Kuja up out of my arms and gently threw him over his shoulder. He didn't put up a fight, but I didn't expect him to. As far I could tell, he had nowhere else to go.


	10. Chapter 10

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy IX and Dissidia are the property of Square Enix. The people who came together to make these characters and their worlds made their fans a home to which they will always return.

Evening, everyone. It's been more than a few months. I've gotten sick in a series of thrilling and time-consuming ways all while trying to wrap up a degree and move forward in my career. That, and a certain someone really wanted to work on a different story, with all sorts of different research and development. He's capricious like that. But some of us do try to keep their promises, so here's the next chapter, at least.

Best,

Grey

CHAPTER TEN

In dream and intermittent waking, I shifted between a stark landscape and the fantasy of a room.

In this cramped room I was lying in an honest-to-goodness bunk bed, buried under a mass of patched quilts and knitted blankets. Someone had removed my jacket and my armor and draped it all on the ladder rungs. A low hum cradled me.

I wasn't unaware I was dreaming. But while I lay there, I could pretend I was in both places. I knew which of the two awaited me when I woke. I felt my thoughts slipping upwards, away from sleep, and braced myself for the raw and exposed rock.

I sat up and the covers fell away from me. I almost struck my head on the upper bunk. I ducked and ran my hand over my hair, to keep my feathers from getting stuck between the slats. There wasn't another pallet in the bunk above me, but there were plenty of boxes suspiciously missing any signs of port clearance stamps. Stacked on the floor were books, trunks, tools, all manner of evidence of other people.

My brother sat not a foot away, his back propped against the bed and facing away from me in the pool of a lantern's meager light. His hair fell loose over his shoulders. It looked like unspooled golden thread. He was tired, as tired as I have ever seen him. I was afraid that was my fault.

The fragments connected. I was inside that airship of his, the one that had been shot down into forest. Salvaged afterwards, it must have been. Chaos was the dream.

"You saved me," I said with relief. I laughed. I couldn't help myself. What did I say to him? How did I express the gratitude I only found in delirium? There was no Cosmos, no Chaos, no pointless battle, only…

Only me.

I couldn't look at him. "Where do I start?"

He shifted but didn't reply. Of course. I didn't expect him to. I supposed he'd had all this time to regret his decision to save my life. Two separate eternities spun by regret, lived in a matter of days.

He cleared his throat, then turned around to look at me. "Well, how're you feeling?" he asked me as he gathered his hair back and out of his face.

There was a knock. The hinges squeaked. I had never been happier to find myself surrounded by squalor.

The door opened just enough for someone to poke his head in. "We've gotta talk about Cloud. He's acting strange. I don't mean he's keeping to himself, that's not strange for him, I mean a whole different kind of strange—"

Cloud?

I choked back a cry as my vision blurred. Immediately Bartz was hovering next to me, his hand over the ghost of the wound in my side. It had been completely healed as soon as Zidane pitched in, but he wouldn't have known that.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

I shoved him off and retreated as far as I could into the dark shelter of the bunk bed. "Don't touch me—"

Sephiroth's voice came back to me. Don't expect one. Don't expect an answer.

The memory of the Emperor's magic forcing its way through me was still branded into my bones. All that pain, to supposedly save me from the person sitting within arm's reach.

Zidane stifled a laugh as he crossed his legs. "You sound fine to me, anyways."

"Shut up!" I snapped at him. "Where the hell am I?"

He laughed, but didn't say a word. His brow rose up under his shaggy hair: I did tell him to shut up, didn't I?

I collapsed against the pillows. "Thank you for taking care of me," I muttered. "Where are we?"

"You've been out for three days. You are our honored guest aboard the fragment of the _M.S. Prima Vista_. I hope you'll find your suite to your liking, because this is pretty much as good as it gets."

He kept talking after that, something about me being their hostage. My attention buckled under the current of a thousand thoughts. And underneath the current, there was an emptiness that shouldn't have weighed on my mind as much as it did. I spent all but a few days of my life with it, so who knew why it bothered me so much now.

It wasn't an emptiness, but the clean absence of the sweet and heady spell of Cosmos' light.

"Kuja. Hey. Did you hear me? I said I don't care," said Zidane. His voice shifted into a precarious gentleness. He ducked his head into the bunk. It was suspicious.

Bartz was sitting next to him on the floor. He looked particularly wounded; I seemed to have hurt his feelings when I pushed him away. I was trapped by well-meaning gazes and hopeful expressions. Wonderful.

"What are you even saying to me?" I asked him.

"Truce," Zidane elaborated. "What's done is done. The Crystal's gone. There's nothing we can do about it now."

That didn't sound like him at all. Unless it did. Perhaps he was so eager to put it behind us because his plan had failed. Best to forget it had ever happened.

"The only thing we can do is keep going. Did you mean what I think you meant when you said I needed you if I wanted to go home?"

"I did," I said. My voice curled up in my throat. He was right, in more ways than he intended. The only thing to do was to move forward.

"That's why Sephiroth attacked me," I said to him. "He figured out I only have a chance to tear through this world when I'm my most complete self. You do remember what I'm capable of?" To my credit, it didn't sound entirely like a warning.

"I do," he murmured. He took strength from a sigh. "All right. What do you need?"

"Excuse me?" I looked at him, and at Bartz, who was only somewhat less surprised than me.

"Cosmos is gone," said Zidane. "We may find the other crystals, sure, and that might change things. We might even win, but I don't see how any of this ends with us being allowed to go back where we came from. So tell me what you need," he insisted. "If it's something I can help you with, then I'll do it."

He didn't save me. I'd taught him how to look out for himself. What an influence I was.

I motioned to get out of the bunk. They gave me enough space to do so. I took my boots from the ladder. I'd always been so ashamed at the thought of telling him what my intentions had been and what they led to, and now that conversation would never take place. One less thing I'd have to worry over.

After I pulled up my leggings to protect my skin from the leather, I slipped my feet into my boots. I adjusted the sculpted dragon hide armor over my knees.

It was best kept to myself, when it came down to it. What happened didn't matter. Only the result mattered. Zidane was right. Cosmos was so weak she was practically gone.

I pulled my scale armor flush to my chest and slipped my arms through my sleeves. All the layers fell into place with a shrug. I strapped my gauntlets over my hands. I ran my fingers through the tangles in my hair and dragged myself to my feet.

I always assumed the day would come when Zidane would force me to tell him and I wouldn't know how to begin.

One look at him, and the mask slipped. How was it that I was once able to say anything to anyone, no matter what I thought of them?

I pushed past them into the narrow hall. One of them called out after me. I couldn't breathe in this stale air anymore. I followed suggestions of sunlight until I reached the deck. I winced at the unfailing light and stepped out into its warmth.

Then I saw Cloud and the three manikins.

He wasn't fighting them. They weren't fighting him. He stood behind them, his expression blank, his gaze so far away—

His eyes had already shifted to that unsettling green, his pupils the same shape as a cat's. Bartz had good instincts, but neither of them would have known the signs.

I forgot the Emperor's insistence, Zidane's possible treachery. I teleported past the manikins. They turned and looked at me. They paused, unsure what to do. They weren't expecting me.

At first I didn't recognize their features, but then I saw I wasn't meant to. They were variations on the same theme, all starlight hair and long coats.

I shattered the manikins just as Zidane and Bartz ran out onto the deck. I spelled Cloud to sleep and caught him as he pitched forward. His shoulder armor dug into my collar.

"What did you do to Cloud? Where do you think you're going?" Zidane demanded as I passed Cloud off to him and rushed off to the edge of the deck.

Sephiroth already knew I was still alive and where Cloud was. There wasn't much to be done about that, but I could make it hard for him to attack out of nowhere again.

"We have to move," I told him, as if I had any idea what I was doing. It would have been easier to leave and abandon this fragment forever. But I couldn't bear the thought. It belonged to home; we weren't surrendering it so easily as that. Of all the fragments, this was the only one that made me forget where I was.

At the doorway, I reached for the seams that attached this memory to the rest of the world. I was not surprised to find Sephiroth facing me from the other side.

"Come to reclaim your puppet?" I asked him.

"He called to me," answered Sephiroth. His height bore over me. "I hope he hasn't been too much trouble. I'll take him and be on my way… unless you would like to join us?"

I shook my head. "I'm afraid I can't help you. My deepest apologies, but you'll have to take Cloud over my dead body."

I found the edges of the doorway and I tore them free. Sephiroth's image disappeared as if caught in a sudden gale.

The fragment quaked, even though it was far above land. Pieces of the airship shuddered, then shifted out of sight. This whole fragment would become lost and drift like flotsam in the in-between unless I anchored it somewhere else.

I tore a hole in the air in front of me. Nothing. A strain of darkness reached through, pushed through me with intense cold. I gasped. It was looking for something it wouldn't find within me, but that didn't stop it from trying.

In any other world, any honest world, there would be substance for the darkness to latch onto and grow. A Crystal, a real and true Crystal, surrounded by the memories of the world manifested from its light.

The airship pitched forward. I couldn't divert my magic; I didn't even think. I grabbed the railing with my tail.

I stared down into the engulfing darkness, the nothing that lay in place of our Memoria. If I had fallen into it, then I...

I wasn't sure what would happen to me. Perhaps I would disappear altogether. Perhaps I would never be.

Arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me back onboard.

I shut the portal, my body shaking and shivering from the brush with the void. I couldn't open a portal blind like that again. I felt my way more precariously this time, pushing through instead of tearing.

There it was. A barren portal, one that led to nowhere and from nowhere, a ruin with no door. It took all my strength to pull the two together close enough to connect them.

One thread connected, then two. It got easier as it went, thankfully. This world wanted to make itself as true as it could, even if it would never succeed.

The surface of the deck stopped shaking. Zidane let go of me. He'd saved me.

He wouldn't have done that if he'd ever intended to be rid of me. That would have been the perfect, blameless chance. Right?

When I closed my eyes, the abyss I glimpsed expanded beneath me. Vertigo dropped me to my knees. With nothing in my stomach, I had little to cough up. The taste of acid filled my mouth. I leaned against the base of the railing.

I felt this once before, in a different form. A long time ago.

"Was that… Sephiroth?" Bartz wanted to know.

I sat there, in the warm memory of the sun. I gathered my breath, calmed my nerves. I had never openly opposed Sephiroth. What was I thinking?

Cloud stirred. "Get him inside," I ordered Zidane and Bartz. "He can't know where the fragment's connected. He doesn't see sunlight until we have a plan."

Cloud was Cosmos' champion now. What was the point of him stepping into her light if it couldn't protect her from Sephiroth?

If her light wasn't enough to protect the ones who managed to escape Chaos, then I only had myself to blame.

Zidane and Bartz stared at me. "What are you waiting for?" I snapped. They couldn't honestly have no idea what they were dealing with after they saw Sephiroth in Kefka's fragment, could they?

My head swam. I'd done far too much, far too quickly after my trance.

Oh gods, my trance. I'd killed the Emperor. After all he supposedly did to protect me from Garland in this cycle. After all he said he did to save me from Cosmos' trap in the cycle past.

After all his implausible tricks, to take me to some so-called 'Promised Land'.

Zidane stepped forward. "Hey, why don't you take Cloud inside," he said to Bartz. "Kuja needs some air."

Bartz paused. What was his part? I needed to get him alone. I needed to talk to him.

Zidane didn't waste any time. "You knew what was going on. You saved him. Us too, I think. You know him or something?"

"You told me you didn't care what happened," I told him. I couldn't help it. I left him at the railing and I followed Bartz.

He led Cloud, stumbling, into a storage room with its contents pushed to the corners to make room for the pallet laid out on the floor.

As Bartz laid him down, Zidane blocked the doorway. "What's going on? I want answers."

"What happened..." murmured Cloud. He looked up at me with suspicion. "What are you doing here? What did you do to Zidane and Bartz?"

He had nothing to worry about on that front. "You showed some symptoms," I said to him. "I had them move you here. Don't worry, I'm well versed in this condition of yours." I didn't bother to soften the edge on my voice. There was no point, with him.

"Condition of mine," he repeated. "I thought we didn't get sick."

"Sick, no. This is akin to an old injury flaring up again. I've seen its like before."

"Where would you've..."

He closed his eyes and turned his head, his unruly hair pressing into the pillow. His breath evened out. That wasn't my doing. That was his own body, knowing what it needed in order to recover itself from Sephiroth.

"If it were a spell," I said with my voice soft, "No matter how complex, I could isolate it. It would be no trouble to extract it, snuff it out. Raw Terran magic has more to do with the treatment Cloud has undergone than the books and scrolls that I used to refine my own abilities… I'm not Garland."

"You remember," I added as I looked up to Zidane. I searched his face. For what, I wasn't sure. "You've seen the place where we were made."

Zidane knelt by my side. "You're saying that he…?"

"No. Cloud was born," I answered him. "He had a mother. Even Sephiroth had a mother. A birth mother," I explained. Not that this crucial difference helped Cloud now. "This was done to him later."

"So instead of taking those influences out of him, as he deserves, I'll need to layer my own compulsions and bindings and barriers," I said, "but my work will never run as deep as Sephiroth's pull."

He frowned. He wasn't a complete moron. He was much smarter than I'd given him credit for. The sway I held over Queen Brahne, versus the bridle Garland could throw over us the second we forgot ourselves. I could enchant, but Sephiroth's authority ran in Cloud's veins.

"Are you asking us for permission?" said Zidane then.

Did you hear a rumor I had found people I could trust? I wanted to ask him. Did you take me away from them? Did you mock me when you stood by my side as I received a Crystal from your goddess?

Did you poison me? Did you do it because you believed it was the right thing to do? Or for revenge? Did you even have to worry about the difference?

"You think you're the one to give it?" I said, too harsh. I paused, then added, "Not that it matters. I don't have the strength for it now."

Zidane stayed for a moment longer, then gave up and walked out. Bartz remained. Now was my chance.

I waited. I wasn't sure how to begin. I couldn't stand the way he looked at me: scared and excited all in one. Instead I turned my gaze to Cloud as I spoke.

"You wouldn't lie to me, would you," I asked Bartz. "Even if… even if it were something you were afraid to tell me."

He made a grumbling sound, then knelt down next to me. "What're you talking about?"

I closed my eyes. I'd never quite figured out the wording.

He threw his arm around my shoulder. It wasn't annoying when he did it. "I knew you hadn't betrayed us," he said softly. "I never doubted you. Never."

Why was he so stupid and sentimental. "It doesn't matter if I betrayed you or not, don't you get it," I finally said to him. "It's gone."

"It must've hurt," he said quietly.

I didn't move. I couldn't look at him. "It took all I had left to destroy it," I found myself saying. "It was the only way to keep it out of their hands. You've no idea how much it hurt," I added with bitterness. "I can still…"

Those were hardly even my own words, they sounded so trite. He actually seemed to take my word for it. What a miracle.

"You're in no shape to be looking after Cloud," he said. "We can handle it. I'll wake you if he starts to go all glowy-eyed."

"I'll be fine," I said. It was the appropriate thing to say.

Dream of fire, I silently mused over Cloud. Dream of a metal sky, dream of a girl laid to rest at the bottom of a lake. Dream of a crater buried in snow, and a cry that shakes your entire planet. Dream your worst nightmares, and remember them when you wake.


	11. Chapter 11

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy IX and Dissidia are the property of Square Enix. The people who came together to make these characters and their worlds made their fans a home to which they will always return.

 **CHAPTER ELEVEN**

Kuja began his work on the compulsion of Sephiroth's lurking under Cloud's skin. I went onto the deck, and gazed down at Alexandria below. But three hours passed and nothing down there really changed, not even the amount of sun in the sky. It was like watching the water on the surface of a lake.

I went back inside.

The door to Cloud's room was open. Every so often a faint flicker of magic drifted mote-like into the dark hold. I nodded to Bartz, who crossed the open door and came over to where I was standing. I figured that would be less of a distraction than me coming over to Bartz and having our conversation right there.

"How's it going?" I muttered.

He shrugged. "The heck would I know, he's not exactly using spells on the standard scroll study list. He says there's not even any guarantee what he's doing will work."

"You think he's a double agent?" I said then.

"If he is, then we're the ones who left them in the same room together," he pointed out.

"But if Cloud were even an unwilling agent of Chaos, then what could we do then? We can't protect him from Chaos, either."

Bartz leaned against the wall. He closed his eyes. "We don't know that. It's not like we've failed, yet."

I told him I'd take over. He didn't protest, though he didn't think we'd needed to keep an eye on Kuja in the first place. He slunk down to the floor and leaned back against the wall with his eyes closed.

I'd lost Bartz at the end of the tenth cycle, to Exdeath himself. I'd watched him die. The gods put no value in that. To them, it was just a noble gesture.

I didn't mean to say that Cosmos didn't care about us. Or that she didn't need us. If the gods didn't need us, then they would fight their war with manikins. They wouldn't bother to revive us for the next round.

After the tenth cycle, I started getting on Kefka's nerves. Correction: we started getting on Kefka's nerves. We were already friends again by then.

There was something suspicious going on with their side. We were starting to see factions, and Kefka seemed to be going back and forth between sides. We kept an eye on him.

But the day he ambushed us, we thought we were far enough away from the border or any known doorways. So we let our guards down. Bartz was telling me the story, again, of how he'd gotten swept up into things.

"And then this meteorite falls, and five minutes later, I'm stealing a pirate ship with the Princess of Tycoon—"

We barely dodged the spell in time. We picked ourselves up from the dirt, ready to fight back. Kefka had Terra split us up. She chased down Bartz, and soon, I was on my own.

Sometimes help came from the strangest of places. I thought it was my own magic, at first, that knocked him off his feet, but that was just going off appearances. It was more powerful, more precise. That, and I hadn't actually cast anything.

Kefka stood there with a sour face looking behind me, to the source of the spell. I glanced over my shoulder without letting my guard down, even though Kefka had dropped his.

A figure in black and white drew even with me, but didn't even acknowledge me. That gave me a few moments to try to figure out who I was looking at. I'd never seen this warrior before.

They didn't look like a real, living person. They looked like a sculpture come to life, some artist's vision that never existed in reality. They reminded me of Terra: a beautiful and deadly doll.

Kefka wasn't thrown like I was. "Borders are meant to be ignored," he insisted. "Come on, when have I ever been anything but loyal to Garland—this is what that gets me nowadays? Back in my day…" he said with a flashing grin.

That grin didn't last long. "And you think my meetings with the despot and the hag might not be useful?" he said, more seriously. He paused. "Fine, I will take it up with him."

This one-sided conversation wasn't doing his insane reputation any favors.

"And you can just—" Kefka began sweetly. He lashed out and followed up with a sheer barrier.

The strange figure was quick—they had already retaliated—but not quick enough. Some force of the spell ricocheted off Kefka's barrier and caught me off-guard. It hit me square between my ribs. Winded, I buckled to the ground. Even from the dirt I could see Kefka had already made his exit.

If Kefka had bailed, then things didn't bode well for me. That thought gave me the strength to prop myself upright.

The figure came closer. I put pressure on my chest, feeling my breath catch against the pain like a latch in a door. "What did I ever do to you—"

I heard the smallest gasp, and the figure's pale eyes seemed to scream at me.

Then the figure righted their shoulders and touched their sculpture-grey lips with affront at some unseen betrayal. The black knifepoint nails gleamed in the artificial light. The piercing need in those eyes drifted away.

I heard a voice in my head, dispassionate and detached. _His_ _authority no longer extends to you. You have his promise: this mistake will not happen again._

He was a man. A man more lithe than Cecil, more refined than Sephiroth. And in that single instant I'd caught when the mask slipped, I looked at a man who knew me. A man I had never seen before in my life.

Then in my head I saw him in sunlight, with a smile on his face, color on his cheeks and on his strange clothes. There was hatred. A laughing, doubled-edged hatred.

I tapped into that hate too, only I wasn't smiling.

That hatred was a stranger to me, and this stranger made me feel like it had been there all along. The animated doll in front of me couldn't have been any more different, except for the film of cruelty that coated them both.

He began to walk away from me. I'd heard his gasp, all right. Whatever the sight of him had done to me, I must have done likewise. Did we know each other?

"Wait a second," I called out before I knew what I was doing. If that blow hadn't meant to hurt me, I had no business finding out what happened when he did.

He looked over his shoulder at me, and I saw him in the rain, surrounded by ruins and the sound of thunder. He mounted a silver dragon—

There was no silver dragon. There was only a wisp of light as he disappeared.

That night about half of us managed to gather in a camp on the edge of a forest well into our territory. Sitting around the fire with the others, Bartz reported Kefka's trespass, but I had some difficulty describing the incident. Squall wanted to believe me, he did. But I wasn't giving him a lot of help.

"What do you mean," he pointed out, "Someone we've never seen came out of nowhere and nearly killed a Warrior of Chaos—"

"They're one of us then, they have to be," said Bartz. "Zidane, you're sure you can't even describe this person? This is why we don't leave you alone. You were obviously daydreaming about Terra the whole time."

I pretended to be offended. "You're one to talk, last week you wouldn't shut up about the silver-haired mage with the cheekbones—that was the guy I saw today," I realized aloud.

"Credit where credit is due," I added. "He is one of the most beautiful people I've ever seen. After you, of course, Warrior of Light."

That got a laugh from him, a rare one.

"Does he wear black and white, not much of either?" asked Cecil out of nowhere. He was sitting a little further out from the circle. I'd pretty much forgotten he was there.

"That's a nice way of putting it," I replied.

"Golbez mentioned him once," Cecil continued, suddenly at the center of everyone's attention. "He's their Angel of Death." If only I had a constant source of information about the forces of Chaos.

"He said something odd to me," I told Cecil. "Well, he didn't talk, he spoke in my head. He said someone's authority didn't extend to me. Said 'him'."

Cecil looked down at the point of his spear. "Golbez called him Garland's instrument. But when I asked him to clarify, he said that we—the chosen of Cosmos—had no reason to worry about him. The Angel wouldn't come for us."

So as Kefka had Terra and Sephiroth had Cloud, Garland had the Angel of Death. Seems Chaos had the monopoly on pretentiously named underlings.

We talked about my encounter a little more after that. I may have exaggerated the details of my daring escape from the sinister instrument of Garland's will. Then the conversation turned to the murmurs of infighting and rebellion amongst Chaos' ranks, murmurs passed to us by Golbez and seen in Kefka's behavior. Some of them thought they could do Garland's job better than him. We would be idiots not to take advantage of that.

After that, we came up against a wall before we could settle on some semblance of a goal. Some of us wanted to find the root of the sedition, look for common ground. Some fought it, insisting it wasn't our way. They shifted back to their easier roles: defense of our goddess, learning our strengths against the darkness.

Bartz wanted to see what was going on with this schism. I wasn't sure where I stood. I seemed to be good at sneaking around, but I wanted to protect Cosmos.

It wasn't a good idea to rest in one big group. After everyone had gone their separate ways, Bartz stuck with me. "You were serious about continuing to look into this split in their forces, after Kefka attacked us?" I remarked.

"You shut up pretty quick," he pointed out. "Earlier."

No use denying it. I nodded.

"And you're shutting up pretty quick right now," he added. "What really happened before I made my way back to you?"

"I didn't fight the Angel of Death," I confessed. "I just let him walk away."

"I don't need to tell you there's no shame in that, in that situation," said Bartz with a frown. "So why are you making me tell you there's no shame in that?"

"I'm not making you—" I sighed. "Something happened. He reminded me of something. I hate him and I don't know why. I just have that feeling and I don't like having that feeling. It's horrible, like he put this poison into me and he's carrying around the antidote, but he said I would never see him again."

Out of nowhere, I heard a boyish voice I didn't recognize. Or maybe it was just inside my head too, but it didn't sound like the Angel's. That voice was talking to me, and I'd tuned in mid-conversation.

"Of course," the boyish voice said, "we don't look alike at all. But I can see one thing. Their minds aren't hollow. I think that their minds are just out to lunch for a little while…"

I needed to focus. "He knows me, Bartz," I added. "I saw it in his eyes. Just for a second. He knows who I am—"

Bartz stopped me. "So Garland's got this person who he plainly uses to keep the others in check. You don't think if you help find out what's splitting the forces of Chaos in two, you'll run into this Angel of Death again?"

"He's powerful," was the first excuse I could think of.

"So we'll be careful," said Bartz. "Cecil found his big brother on the other side. Sir Jecht found his _son_."

"And Firion found the despot who crushed his kingdom just because he could, and you found the collected manifestation of thousands of angry souls sealed away in a tree. Somehow I don't like those odds."

I'd made it through a few cycles of battle without losing. Some would say I was lucky, others would say I had to run out of that luck eventually. I had nothing but a handful of half-remembered dreams of another world.

Dreams, and no one who especially had it out for me. That was an enviable place.

I worried the memory in the rain like an aching tooth, but the more I tried to squeeze out of it, the less I could recall. I had to sneak up on it, view it from the corner of my mind's eye. I was on the ground, wounded, but not by him, I didn't think. The stonework beneath me matched nothing I had ever seen in this world.

I was not alone in the rain. I had friends.

Several days later, Bartz and I found more evidence of this split in Chaos' forces. It was hard to think of an innocent reason to find Kefka, with Terra, and Sephiroth talking to the Emperor and Ultimecia outside the arch of a ruin on the edge of a marsh. We might have been trespassing on Chaos territory that time.

There was a barrier around them that kept their voices from carrying, but we could still read their lips. Maybe I was trying deliberately to read the names 'Garland' and 'Angel of Death' as the Emperor spoke, maybe I was seeing what I wanted to see in their cautious and angry expressions.

Meanwhile, Terra stood there, her eyes to the ground. She didn't seem entirely asleep. She looked like she desperately wanted to be anywhere else. How did a girl like her end up becoming Kefka's minion, anyways? Had she believed in him, in another battle? Cared for him, even, further back than we could ever guess?

Suddenly the Emperor looked up. An intricate alarm set off near his shoulder. He had set up a further perimeter, and it had been breached. Bartz and I looked at each other. We thought we'd been careful.

They dispersed with all the speed guilt could grant them, leaving Kefka and Terra. It wasn't us they were worried about. The person who had breached the perimeter had done it on purpose.

The Angel of Death made himself seen. Bartz nudged me. If I was going to approach him, now was the time. I wasn't so sure, but Bartz had my back. Crouching, we drew closer.

"You again," Kefka grumbled at the Angel of Death. He looked over to Terra. "I don't really feel like talking to a machine right now. Can you take a message for me?"

The Angel scarcely moved. Starlight sparked into light in the air between. One spark attracted another, building into a caustic orb. It was like an eclipse. I couldn't stare directly at it. The light swarmed for Kefka, but Terra jumped in front of him.

She hadn't cast a reflective barrier or even a rudimentary defensive shield. White deathly light pierced her stomach and ate her up like burning magnesium.

The girl closed her eyes, her eyelashes flooded with her painful tears. But no cry escaped her lips: just a murmur that might very well have been "thank you". Or anything else.

Her hands fell from her wounds. At peace, she collapsed. The slightest current in the air went through her like sand, and she was gone except for the tiara she had been wearing on her head.

"You killed her!" Kefka exclaimed as he rushed forward and grabbed the tiara. "What am I supposed to do now—" he fumed, too mad for words. Fiery magic crackled around his fingers and lunged forward.

The Angel of Death caught this magic and wrapped it around his hand like a whip. With a sharp tug it snapped into hundreds of sparks which lashed back at their creator.

 _You were the one who ordered her to take the blow for you. You were more than ready to make the sacrifice._ He almost sounded bitter.

"I did no such thing. Some people are just loyal," Kefka hissed, swearing under his breath. He backed off, and slipped the tiara into his sleeve.

The Angel turned to us, as if he had only just noticed we had been there the whole time. He gave us a look, dismissing us. We were free to go.

 _She will be returned to you in time_. It was the second time I could hear the Angel when he spoke to Kefka. That had to be a mistake. _Garland wishes to make things clear._ The Angel tore open a portal himself and held his hand out in pantomime of patience.

"I'll be filing a complaint to your boss," Kefka seethed as he barreled into the portal. "He needs to know his equipment's defective."

It shut behind him, returning the air to normal.

"You killed that girl," I said. I didn't know what to say about the look of relief she wore on her face as she faded away.

 _May she find freedom in her next battle._ The callous expression on his face matched the even tone of his voice in my head. Without another word, light enveloped him.

"Where are you going?"

 _The Chaos Shrine_ , he answered as he faded away.

We'd talked. Kind of. I didn't know if that was the Angel talking to me, or Garland talking through him. Either way, I hadn't expected him to actually tell me. If this was a trap, it was both the most obvious and least obvious trap I had ever seen.

Garland didn't bother with the likes of Bartz and me. And neither did the Angel of Death. So why the invitation?

 _May she find freedom,_ he had said. It sure didn't seem like something Garland would wish for. It didn't make sense that someone I knew would be under Garland's control. I needed to find a way to get to the Chaos Shrine.

The next day I ditched Bartz and cornered the Warrior of Light into a conversation on a rocky shore. The tide sounded exactly the same each time it came in and out.

"Hey," I said to him, "have you been hiding something from me?"

The surprise that darkened his face seemed genuine enough, so I didn't wait for him to answer. "Do you remember me," I continued. "Are we from the same place?"

He shook his head. "I don't, and I don't believe we are. That being said, my memories of a world beyond this one are so faint, they may very well be the product of my imagination."

I frowned. He'd never said anything like that before. I just thought he liked to keep to himself.

"I know Garland," he said, "and I know Chaos. This world does not seem all that strange to me, apart from its emptiness. I keep feeling as if there should be more. That's it, I'm afraid."

I debated leaving this conversation as it was. But there was a memory that refused to be forgotten. "So you don't know this Angel of Death."

"In my dreams I see visions of Garland's demons and fiends. The Angel is not among them."

Strange and stranger. That settled it. "I need a way to get to the Chaos Shrine," I said to him.

"I can't tell you that."

"But you do know. I'll wear you down," I said with a smile. A half hour later, I'd come through on that promise.

During that cycle, the quickest way to get to the Chaos Shrine was through two different doorways with a few hours' worth of walking in the world in between each of them. That, and a few manikin patrols.

I didn't dare ask Bartz to come with me. If anyone was going to get hurt over this, it certainly wasn't going to be him. The guilt of abandoning him without explanation gnawed at me, but I did have my doubts as to how long the Warrior of Light would be able to keep my whereabouts secret. That kept me moving forward. The quicker I got to the Chaos Shrine and back, the less likely it was that anyone else but me could get into trouble.

Admittedly, that logic did have its flaws.

I wasn't sure what to expect, whether the Chaos Shrine would be their base of operations, if it would be crawling with manikins, or what. The Warrior of Light's directions were good, and I found I needed to will myself to enter the shrine.

The storm churning overhead kept my footsteps silent, my breath and my daggers inaudible. Those manikins never saw me coming. But once inside the crumbling formidable temple, I was struck by its stillness. There was nobody there.

Keeping to the shadows, I looked for a blaze of black and white. I wondered if he was watching me.

"Zidane," said a voice that matched the thunder. At the end of the hall near the empty throne, stood Garland, the fallen knight. It hadn't even occurred to me that Garland himself would know my name.

"It was you all along," I realized as I stepped into the meager light, "waiting for me."

"Yes, but not the way you think," was his answer. "My Angel did intend to meet you here. He planned on taking advantage of your ignorance and your pity, in hopes of securing his freedom. I recognized his veiled plea for what it was and sent him elsewhere."

I wasn't buying it. "Where is he?" I demanded.

"I discourage you from looking into our affairs any longer. There are very good reasons I have contained him in his current state. Reasons he would have hidden from you until he had gotten what he wanted out of you and stabbed you in the back for your troubles."

"Strange, I don't seem to want to take your word for it."

Garland shook his head. "A few cycles ago, I bid Chaos to summon a warrior that was very much like you. His will was too strong to make him into a proper Warrior of Chaos, and I even considered discarding him. But then I thought that I should put his particular strengths to use. I sent that warrior as my servant, amongst the others, to befriend them and through him, monitor them for signs of rebellion."

There was something about the way he talked to me, impatient and in a practiced cadence that gave me the impression he'd said all this before. Not that recognizing this made what he said make any more sense.

"Okay," I said slowly, trying to piece it all together, "but I've dealt with the people you lead. I haven't seen anyone like me over on this side."

"You judge only by disposition. I mean someone with a vessel similar to yours."

A vessel similar to mine. Did he mean a body? But nobody looked like me, either. Nobody else had a tail, for starters.

"The one I bid Chaos summon might also be called your brother. His name is Kuja."

I wanted to repeat it aloud after him. It wasn't as if the name didn't sound familiar. It was a word on the tip of my tongue, one I'd finally been able to speak.

"Once he was even more like you than you can imagine. So much like you, in fact, that you wound up on Cosmos' side thanks to coincidence and circumstance, not necessarily thanks to your soul. You are no chosen one of the Crystal, no Warrior of Light."

Now he was just trying to tick me off. What did he know. I didn't have a brother, not one that could swear allegiance to Chaos. "I don't remember any warrior of yours by that name."

"What do you remember of him?"

"Why don't you tell me what I should be remembering since you seem to have all the answers?"

"His peculiar ambitions were unbecoming of one of my warriors. The way he is now is better for both sides."

Then it hit me. "You mean your Angel of Death. You summoned him, and then you made him your puppet, like that girl Terra. It seems like you're the one who stands to lose the most if he's freed," I said to him.

Garland studied me for a moment. "Pursue that course of action, and you may learn more about his role in your past than you would like. If you learn all there is for you to learn, and you still wish to make an attempt to free him of his chains… well, there is little difference between a Warrior of Cosmos and a fool."

"Why don't you just tell me where he is? If you let me have one talk with him, then I'll know you've got nothing to be afraid of. But if you keep him away from me… I might just start trying harder to get a word in with him."

"So be it." He held out his large gauntlet. The Angel of Death—Kuja—appeared on command at his right hand, in a wavering column of blue light.

He stood there, unmoving. His arms were softly crossed over his chest. He didn't look at me, but slightly past me, as if there were something more compelling just out of my line of eyesight.

"Are you asleep in there?" growled Garland. "What are you waiting for?"

Kuja's expression split, for just a second, into the snarled beginning of a protest. He looked up at Garland, furious. Then his face softened, stilled. His lip curled into a cruel smile.

So much for conversation.

He turned to me and his long hands rose into the beginning of an incantation. It looked wrong, like his knuckles were fighting the flex of their own movements. Despite my placeless hatred, despite the vague memory of that cold smile turned real right in front of me, he didn't want to fight me.

Though for someone who didn't want to fight me, he sure could have convinced me otherwise. He was fast. So fast. And for a mage, he didn't seem to care about being given the space to keep his magic straight in his head. He didn't need it. He wielded his power like weapon and will, all in one.

He wasn't fighting to win. He was drawing this out as long as he could. But every time I tried to evade him and make for Garland, he suddenly shaped up and knocked me back. There was no way I was going to gain any ground against him without doing some damage.

I called his name, tried to get through to him any way I could, though I had nothing on him. According to Garland, he could be called my brother. It bothered me how quiet he was. I didn't hear his voice in my head, out loud, nothing but for the occasional faint emphasis of a watered-down spell.

It was harder to ignore the hatred now. Somehow it gained a foundation, an anchor, even though I didn't know what it was. Maybe I was onto something after all. Maybe I should have paid more attention to my instincts.

Then the names started flooding in, and with them, the memories they evoked. There was too much to sort through at once, but they just kept coming. Somehow this fight was breaking down the dam.

Everything Kuja had done to my home and my friends came back to me. He didn't deserve to be kept around as Garland's Angel of Death. That was too good for him. I was going to take him down.

There was something in the back of my head, something just out of reach. Some reason why that wasn't wrong, necessarily, but it was complicated. My gut had just spent the past few days trying to tell me the truth. Just because I was on Cosmos' side didn't mean I was so quick to forgive.

"That's enough. Do you think I don't know what you're trying to do?" Garland called to him. "The result will be the same. Do not waste my time. Kill him and be done with it."

Kuja began to construct that same starlight orb that killed Terra. But just when it swelled, it collapsed in on itself. He absorbed the magic. He shivered with the effort of it. Then finally I heard him for the first time. He laughed.

He laughed, and then a storm of lightning and light overtook him. The black and white Angel of Death was gone. A searing creature had taken his place.

Garland instinctively drew up his guard. Just because he was a Warrior of Chaos didn't make that a bad idea. I did the same.

Kuja stood there staring at his trembling hands, fire given form, perplexed at himself. He reached up and touched his temples. His fingers followed his waves and turned the ends, surprised to find feathers instead of hair. His clothes shredded by the force of his power, it was now plain for all to see that he had a tail.

He suppressed an ecstatic sigh and turned to me. "I'll try to hold back," he said to me. Aloud. Sparks snapped in the air around him. They drew into themselves like filings to a magnet. "No promises."

I was wrong when I said he didn't want to fight me. He wanted to fight me. He just didn't want to win. He was up to something. Garland was right.

I held out my blades and dropped them on the ground. From what I just saw, he'd have a hell of a time holding back if I didn't even defend myself. "Kind of rude for you to not introduce yourself first. Kuja, right? Where'd you come from?"

You'd think that was the worst thing anyone had ever said to him. He caught aflame. "You know me. I've destroyed the lives of everyone you can't even remember. I brought your adopted home to its knees and shattered your true home to pieces. I would have broken the Crystal itself so that none of it would have ever existed."

I drew my hands up just in time—not that it was going to help me any—but his magic bounced right off me. When I opened my eyes, my vision was crawling with this glowing writing. I remembered it now, the writing, and a pale blue light. It was the light of a world only just clinging to life. I knew that light belonged to my home.

I dropped to the ground, grabbing my blades as I got out of there. He chased after me.

"What'd you do all that for?" I called over my shoulder, though I had a feeling I already knew the answer. I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up over a person even the Warriors of Chaos called the Angel of Death.

He said 'would have', so he hadn't been able to go through with it. Someone had stopped him. Three guesses who.

What did that make this: an opportunity for revenge?

I put a sensible amount of distance between us. Then I turned around. "So this is just what you do," I said to him.

"You sound so disappointed."

It was just a flippant remark, but that didn't make it any less true. "I am disappointed," I agreed. "I've been here for so long, with no inkling of who I am or where I've come from while the others…"

I shrugged. "You know you're the only other person I've seen with a tail? But now you're just something I have to stop."

"I'm sorry you feel that way. This is truly a pleasure for me. You've no idea. " It was always so hard to read these types who allied themselves with Chaos. I swore he looked happy.

"Help me kill him," he said then, looking over to Garland. It took me a second to realize he was talking to me, not about me.

I stared at him. Garland had been the only one keeping Kuja under control. "Why would I help you do that?"

He gave me an aggravated sigh. "I don't know, why don't you tell me?" The sarcasm was unexpected, and I didn't like its implications. "Because you were going to do it yourself? Because you told him you'd be his Angel of Death?"

"Garland's not from my home," I replied. Out of everything I remembered now, the fallen knight standing in front of us remained the only unfamiliar figure.

"Of course he isn't! That's the entire damned point!" He looked panic-stricken. His voice grew soft. "What does the name 'Terra' mean to you?"

That was more than the name of the girl he'd killed. I thought of the blue light. The moon. Home. I didn't have an answer for him.

"I'm not letting you use me in whatever power struggle's going on here," I told him. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't side with Garland. He tried to warn me about you."

Kuja looked at me like I'd wounded him. Then he turned and fled into a portal, leaving a burning afterimage in his wake.

For a moment, I stood in the Chaos Shrine with the leader of the Warriors of Chaos within a sword's range of me, with my guard completely dropped. I looked up at him, sure that the right thing to say would come to me.

The memories had begun to separate. I could tell what they were, now. I remembered Garnet. I remembered the night I met her. I remembered hearing her say his name for the first time, her face stricken with worry for her mother. I remembered holding her back from running towards Lindblum as Atomos devoured the city. I remembered her, unable to speak. I remembered her cutting her hair.

I had not learned the name Garland here in this world. I hadn't learned the name Terra, either. "I know you, don't I?" I asked him. "It's true, isn't it? Who are you, really?"

He didn't look at me. "None of that matters now. What matters is who you've allowed to run free."

"Who I've allowed to run free? I wasn't the one who forced him to fight me—"

I stopped myself. Was that why Kuja had tranced in the first place? If he was going to break Garland's control on him, he would have done that ages ago. What was different?

Well, for starters, he'd never before been ordered to kill me. Now that I'd seen his tail, it was clear Garland wasn't speaking metaphorically when he called Kuja my brother. He'd said we were alike. I thought he'd been talking as if he knew me from his position as the leader of Chaos, but I wasn't so sure about that anymore.

It didn't make sense for Kuja to run away like that. Maybe he was just afraid of me teaming up with Garland against him, or maybe he had another reason. Kuja had asked me to help him kill Garland. Kuja, with all his pride. He hadn't asked me as if he'd needed the help. He asked me as if it were something important to him, something that should have been important to me.

"There are some things worse than this battle between Cosmos and Chaos," Garland said to me then. "There are deeper things to protect. Deeper things he will destroy. When he falls out of his Trance, he'll be weakened. That will be my best chance to reclaim him. I assume you remember enough to want to help. I could use your assistance."

If anything, it was clear I didn't remember nearly enough. I had another question. "So you can control him? How's that supposed to work?"

His silence wasn't surprising, by that point. Feeling the exhaustion from my forced fight with Kuja, I drew my daggers out. "I feel like I could use some sparring practice," I said to him. "How about you?"

He drew away from me. "I am not going to fight you."

"Of course you're not. Because right now I only remember how much I want to go after Kuja and kick his ass. It's suspicious that the feeling's not mutual, after how I've seen the others act on the battlefield."

"The feeling is mutual, I assure you. He wants to use you against me even more than he wants to annihilate you. You've helped me contain him in our mutual past. We had our differences, but we overcame them in the interest of saving your home."

"Sounded like Kuja had some differences he didn't mind overcoming to get rid of you. Remember that of the two of you, he's the only one so far who asked me instead of giving out orders."

Garland sighed. "I have other things to do besides argue with you. Your involvement in this matter is finished. I'm going to leave you here. I advise you leave as soon as possible. The next time we meet, it will be as enemies."

"No kidding," I muttered as he disappeared. That was the last time I had a real conversation with him.

Things were quiet in the _Prima Vista_. There were no floating motes of spellwork, no murmured languages sounding increasingly less like magic and more like science.

Bartz nudged me with his foot. "Wake up," he said, though I hadn't exactly been asleep. "You hear that?"

I nodded. I went inside. Cloud was asleep on the narrow pallet, and so was Kuja, seated next to him.

Bartz followed after me. He reached down and dragged Kuja to his feet. Kuja's eyes opened halfway. He murmured something about not needing help. Bartz guided him out of the room and he followed, with all the awareness he'd had the first time we'd met in this world.


	12. Chapter 12

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy IX and Dissidia are the property of Square Enix. The people who came together to make these characters and their worlds made their fans a home to which they will always return.

 **CHAPTER TWELVE**

"I only want to help you."

I woke in the darkness of the lower bunk, blankets thrown from the pallet. I didn't remember coming back to this room, only that I had closed my eyes for a moment after laying the final spell under Cloud's skin.

Each spell had been more difficult than the last. It took me nearly four hours to lay them down. His body was not intended to be a vessel, even if the intruder inside of it was determined to treat it as such. His body was meant to be his alone.

My time as Garland's Angel of Death haunted me in sleep. In my dream, I knelt defeated in the fragment where my world's Crystal slept. The place beyond memory and time.

A complex trap unfolded like a flower around me. It knew my defenses; it wasn't even thrown by my Terran take on the standard spells. The Emperor couldn't have made such a thing on his own. It was like learning a language. Someone else would have had to show him enough for him to pick it up and use it against me.

Defeat was a strange concept when I had no power over my own body. Even in my dream, I experienced the painful desire to gather the last vestiges of my strength in order to preserve, at least, some small part of me.

"I only want to help you," the Emperor had said as he loomed over me. His magic trespassed upon a soil shared between Zidane and Garland and myself. He destroyed the barrier between the place we called home and this husk of a world.

His trap consumed me like a wave collapsing in on itself. Zidane stood behind him. He did not move an inch to help me. He simply watched, waiting.

I gathered the blankets to my body and laid there in the dark. I tried to shake the image of Zidane standing silently by as I fell. I couldn't let the Emperor take up any more space in my mind.

The magic within me reminded me of an ember refusing to grow into flame. My senses seemed muffled, even though I knew it was simply the absence of their augmentation I was feeling. My muscles ached.

I tried to clear my mind, to restore the strength I spent. But it had been a long time since I'd been able to clear my thoughts just like that. This entire land was immersed in its own sort of Mist, even here.

And then I was up, sifting through the boxes in the room. I was not hungry; of course I wasn't, I only knew it would help to eat something. I knew I was searching in vain, but if there were food anywhere in this world, there would be some aboard this ship.

The construction of the hull gave the airship an odd nook, used for storage, not reading. I moved the ledgers and packaged goods to the floor.

Would I have come here, after? Would this place have become familiar to me, maybe even this very room? I had caught a glimpse of the figurehead the other day, on deck. A winged mermaid. An impossibility, and yet the only impossibility was how closely she resembled Cosmos.

One of the boxes now at my feet was labeled 'tea'. When I opened it up, I was not greeted with the earthy tannic smell I expected, nor any other smell.

I opened a package of the loose leaves and crumbled them between my fingers. Instead of coming apart like crushed spices, the leaves dirtied my fingertips like charcoal.

What kind of poor craftsmanship went into the recreation of this airship but decided to stop at the packaging? What was the point of even going to the trouble at all, really, if it was just going to fall apart in someone's hands?

This was no place to play at life, not even for a little while.

The doorknob turned, slowly and quietly. I knew it was Zidane before I even saw his face. Only he would know how to open one of these doors without making it creak.

He did not wait for an invitation. He stepped inside, the same expression on his face as in my dream.

"You're awake," he said, as if he hadn't been expecting it.

"What would have been your business if I'd been asleep?" I asked him as he shut the door behind him.

He leaned against the door and crossed his arms over his chest. He figured out what I had been doing, but decided not to comment on it. Please, as if he hadn't done the same thing.

"You should be sleeping," he lectured me. "You shouldn't pretend you've recovered if you haven't. We've been through a lot. So you need to rest. In case… well, not in case. We'll be needing you again," he said, as straightforward as that.

I put down the fake leaves. "Whose room is this?"

It took him awhile to answer. "I don't know," he said, as if I'd upset him. "You sure you want to be doing that?"

I frowned. "I didn't mean to offend you."

He stayed still for a moment. "Anyways, Cloud's awake," he said to me.

I stood up. "And when were you going to get around to telling me that, after you'd updated me on the weather?" I said as I left the room.

I checked Cloud's pulse, his short-term memory, everything I could get away with as he tolerated me under Zidane's and Bartz's insistence.

Then I decided it was time to test my spells' efficacy. "Do you recall what you were doing on the deck?"

"On the deck?" Cloud repeated. "I was just making sure the fragment was secure, what were you doing out there?"

I didn't particularly want his mind to simply gloss over any threatening incidents. That left him too vulnerable. "Fair enough," I said to him. "What happened in Kefka's fragment? What were the three of you even doing there?"

Cloud looked at Zidane and Bartz with an expression that clearly said he didn't think he needed to be answering any questions of mine.

"We've all been trying to go over what happened together," Bartz chimed in. "We followed you into the Lifestream, but everything that happened with Sephiroth—"

"It went over their heads," I interrupted him, before he could chatter on about Sephiroth too much. But the name itself didn't seem to disturb anything within Cloud. All in all, he seemed to be in a good place.

"Those manikins," he said to himself, as he shook his head.

"The disfigured manikin?" I asked. "Or Sephiroth's transference of self from one to another? Because neither should be possible, based upon our—upon my investigation," I said.

Zidane looked over to me, but didn't thankfully didn't pitch in. Not that he would have anything more to say.

"What's a Warrior of Chaos doing, investigating his own foot soldiers?" Cloud wanted to know.

Because your own goddess and leading Warrior of Light are cut from the same cloth, I did not say. Because we may very well all be cut from the same cloth. "As you've seen, the precise nature of their existence... has the potential to be troublesome."

"The manikins came from deep within the Rift, fully formed," I continued. "I'm not saying Sephiroth could not have manipulated the physical appearance of the manikin in the tank, but I am saying I would consider myself far more adept at such things than him, and it's something I've never been able to do."

"Then you'd be wrong. He's done this before," said Cloud, his voice quiet.

I summoned what dregs of magic I could. I braced myself for their use, but I continued.

"What are you talking about?" I asked him.

Cloud shrugged. "He asked me if it looked familiar, when that other manikin took him down—when he became that other manikin—whatever it was that happened. So I'm guessing he's been able to do some version of that for some time."

He was keeping something from me. Which meant Sephiroth had absolutely done something nearly identical in their world, a world developed enough to manipulate genes and exploit this for its own gain. Manikins, black mages, Genomes, soldiers: all variations on the same theme.

It also meant I had nothing to worry about. He remembered, but for the moment, he would be fine. Good. I never expected any less.

"There are manikins who have taken on ascended roles," I began, less than eager to give those thoughts the reins in the conversation. "However, their roles are much more involved in this world in particular. They're not like us."

He'd described something once. Something I once might have found incredibly interesting. I examined him. "Does the phrase 'black materia' ring a bell?"

Cloud frowned. "A chariot to conquer the stars," he muttered, as if he wasn't even sure where those words had come from. I wasn't surprised.

A chariot to conquer the stars. Meteors were meteors until they hit the atmosphere. Comets were ice… a wayward planet was….

These were the stories we'd heard before.

"Wait, 'came'," Cloud said. I didn't know what he was going on about. "You said the manikins 'came' from the Rift. So are you saying…"

"That every manikin you've felled is a manikin gone for good. Yes." The three of them stared at me in shock. "What, did you only want to hear bad news?"

"'Bad news'?" Cloud repeated.

I sighed. "For you, me, whatever. For once, the manikins are only a distraction, not a genuine threat. You need to start focusing on getting your Crystal and going back home."

"What if Sephiroth doesn't want to go back?" he replied. "What's he going to do then?"

"Why wouldn't Sephiroth want to go back—" I began, but then stopped myself. I grinned. He was brilliant.

Sephiroth's plan was entirely insane. He didn't care about his original home anyways. So here, he sacrificed his own life in order to work himself deeper into the rules of this world. That had to be how he could propagate through the manikins.

He was tormenting Cloud in order to cultivate the black materia inside of him. When Cloud was ready to find his Crystal, that dark matter would be the result. If that did happen, then Sephiroth would claim it, bond it with the fragment of the Lifestream—provided the fragment contained enough of their home to do more than just provide for a physical imitation of Jenova—and he could attain godhood, and use this world as his comet to conquer whatever might lay beyond.

But nothing lay beyond, did it? There was nothing else out there. Well, if he really did manage to become a god from all that, then why not plan on both creating and conquering.

"Well, why didn't I think of that," I said. Both Zidane and Bartz shot me the same look. "I'm joking," I insisted. "Honestly."

"I didn't realize I had a rival," I murmured. Not softly enough, apparently. Neither of them broke their glares. "The only power Sephiroth would have available would be the power of our souls, same as me," I began to explain.

It took longer to get through to them than it did to figure it out in the first place. Still, I pretended to be patient. I needed Cloud to hear me the most.

It hadn't been easy to take control of what Sephiroth could and couldn't perceive from Cloud's senses. I wasn't ready for him just yet, but now that was in my hands. No more surprises.

"If that's what you think," said Cloud when I was finished. There was no telling if he believed me, not that his belief was necessary.

What was important was that it gave him enough doubt to keep him running after Sephiroth again. We needed Sephiroth to come to us, where and when we wanted, once we were as likely to defeat him as ever.

How crushing would it be for Sephiroth to come within reach of godliness, only to fail? Forgive me if I didn't feel sorry for him.

"I'd been wondering when might be a good time to talk about those manikins," said Zidane as we left Cloud so he might recover in peace. "I guess they freaked you out too."

I didn't go back to my room. I turned the other way down the hall. I simply wanted to see what he would do.

"Of course they did," I replied. "I suppose, though, that if anyone was going to discover the manikins could be used in such a way, it certainly wasn't going to be either of us."

He didn't stop me, but he did follow me. I had no idea where I was going. I continued, nursing a mortified sort of curiosity, until I found an area where they must have once sat down to eat.

Zidane he leaned against something that looked like it may have been a bar, albeit a humbly stocked one. My tour was over.

"I guess he's doing okay," he said. "Which is a relief, since you worked so hard for all that time. And you know so much about him. Anything you want to say on that front?"

It took me a moment to see what he was trying to get at. "Are you really surprised I didn't tell you I was still on speaking terms with a Warrior of Chaos while I was trying to convince you to work with me?"'

"Yeah, that wouldn't have helped your cause," he admitted. "Let me tell you though, a little honesty goes a long way when you're trying to pull the wool over someone's eyes. You know, for next time."

"You're like one of those horrid little cactuars, but you're only shooting one needle at a time. Keep going, why don't you?"

I waited. In the end, he maneuvered around me and sat down on the edge of the bunk, his feet stretched out awkwardly over the floorboards. "No, that's all I got for now."

So that was the nature of our truce. We would do what worked for both of us, and every so often, throw a halfhearted sting in there in case we forgot what happened the last time we let our guard down.

After a few moments of unsteady peace, he sat upright. "No, this is going to bother me. Cloud's not—" he began, then just gestured to me, up and down. "You know."

Zidane, on the other hand, had a silver tongue when he wanted one and maintained questionably flexible morals. But only one of us had been Cosmos' chosen one from the start.

"What are you trying to say?"

"Cloud's not exactly Kefka."

I wanted to hurt him then. I wanted to inflict something painful, something permanent, whatever it took to make sure he never said that ever again.

Oddly enough, the first time I saw Cloud after I regained control over my own body, he was arguing with Sephiroth. There was no knowing what it was about. 'With all due respect, that just doesn't make any sense', that was all I heard.

Cloud's eyes glowed brighter, just for a moment. He followed Sephiroth's order without another word in protest. Chaos seemed to be scraping the barrel.

"Sephiroth would assign him to me as a scout," I said to Zidane. "We got along well enough, though sometimes Cloud's eyes would change, and then he would go away and leave an empty soldier behind. You caught a glimpse of that the other day when he almost allowed those manikins to kill you."

"Why would Sephiroth do that?" he asked. "You can take care of yourself."

"In case someone attempted to make something happen to me. Sephiroth is... was allied with the Emperor and everyone else who would not have benefitted from me being returned to Garland's side."

"Terra would have been a better fit, of course," I added. "Another mage. But I had just been freed from Garland. Kefka didn't want to risk it. Cloud, though... "

I laughed. "They thought Sephiroth's control was so much harder to detect. They did think themselves clever."

"One faulty doorway turned a single afternoon's reconnaissance into a very long journey back to Chaos territory. He started to talk to me."

After about five minutes I'd written him off as some kid from the farmlands that knew he would never get out unless he took up a sword. Then out of nowhere he shifted into genetics and astrophysics and archaeology, not with the thoroughness of someone who had made those subjects their life's study, but as someone who merely lived in a world where such things impacted his everyday life.

It was as if he weren't speaking, but purging poison from his body. After all, he couldn't have known I understood every word he said.

His memories were hopelessly out of order, out of context. He told me things that outright conflicted with something he'd said five minutes before.

"It soon became plain to me there was something else inside Cloud's mind. It worked very similar to Garland's hold on us. Since he was so far away from Sephiroth, its hold over him was becoming erratic. Talking to him seemed to help," I added.

What helped was the lightest touch of my own coercive magic, just enough to make sure he heard what I never shared with any other servant of Chaos.

They only cared that I had been Garland's instrument of discipline. It wouldn't have mattered to them that I sometimes prayed for my own destruction, that I never forgot the moment I resigned myself to the shame of Garland's control.

Cloud needed to know he was understood.

He never mentioned Sephiroth by name, and only hinted at the vague entity 'Shinra'; not enough of his memory had come back to him yet. But someone had once broken him, and in the end, it was Sephiroth who held the reins.

"Once he trusted me enough to speak, sometimes it was enough to listen. But when it wasn't, I didn't know what to do. He was in pain my magic couldn't touch. The only relief I could give him was dreamless sleep. He needed real medicine, and the type of care that no one in this entire world could provide."

"I realize that makes it sound as if he were helpless, but he wasn't. He said it was still his mission to protect me. And he…"

I smiled at just the memory of it. For all his world-weariness, I was struck by his moments of brazen naiveté.

"He started to talk through this delusional plan of his. Somehow we would kidnap Terra—this was when she was still under Kefka's control—and then recruit Golbez—"

Too late, I stopped myself. The story had made me careless.

I wielded my words as weapons. Zidane didn't care about what had happened at the end of the twelfth cycle, but somehow he managed to find some concern in his heart for this new ally of his.

"—and we would get as far away from Chaos and Cosmos as we could," I continued quietly. "Like the black mages in their village, even though we were fit for nothing but war."

Those had been the Emperor's words. He had read about them in a book, what did he know. The poor little foolish creatures.

I grasped at the broken stories Cloud told me and tumbled down my own imagined versions of his erratic memories. I wandered through my rough sketches of his drained and colorless world until I found darkness and fire.

Sephiroth's silhouette swelled with the flames and grew into something darker, bigger, a monster that didn't have his back turned to me but peered over me like I was nothing more than an insect. His eyes glittered with the crushed remains of extinguished stars. Chaos.

"Why did you even go back?" Zidane wanted to know. "If that's what you wanted, why didn't you just run for it?"

One day we were attacked by a few of Cosmos' chosen. They knew to go after me, not him. Once I was wounded, they succeeded in splitting up the two of us.

"Go—you can't fall—"It was strange that I've still not forgotten the precise pitch of the desperation in his voice.

When it was safe, I looked for him for what must have been hours. I kept telling myself my most immediate worry was that I'd lost something of Sephiroth's, that it was discourteous to lose something so integral to someone else's operations. I refused to believe my guard had been defeated in battle.

I did find him, finally, holed up in the shadow of a cliff face with a sprained leg stretched out parallel to the sword resting by his side.

"Good to see you're all right," was all he said to me.

I put together a small illusion to disguise the light and warmth of a fire. I set to work healing his leg while he told me about the woman who'd injured him. Her name was… he'd told it to me. She was important to him.

I sighed as I returned to Zidane's question. "I'd resolved to speak with you just before we were given our directive. If we ran, then I wouldn't be able to see you again."

"And that's the truth?" he mused.

I laughed. What else was there left to do. The dream of us challenging Chaos together was long gone.

"It is whatever you want it to be," I replied. "Cloud will certainly never regain the memory, no matter how long he fights. And now that he is one of you, I expect he will only hate me more as this goes on."

"So let's not let this go on much longer," I continued. "You asked me what you could do to help me return you to your loved ones. You can help me reap the soul of every last warrior who calls Chaos their god."

He stared at me. "What?"

"Come on, you know how this works," I told him. "I gather the souls of the suffering together under one roof and the sum of their rage and indignation and unfulfilled desires is channeled into my own trance. I pull apart the very laws that keep this world on its own plane separate from Gaia, and you skip on back to your precious queen."

Zidane examined me for a very long time. Not sure why, it's not like I'd said anything to surprise him. "Sure," he finally answered, "but I'm pretty sure none of them are suffering. I don't know if I can…"

"You don't think you have what it takes? Please, you're related to me."

He looked so glad to have me back in his life. This is what he wanted, isn't it?

"If I do this," he said finally, "we're talking to Garland."

What?

"I'm just saying there's got to be a reason he's here with us," he said quickly, before I could gather my thoughts. "Or not a reason, but it's a chance to - we cannot ignore our connection to him. I hate him as much as you, I swear."

"The time for reconciliation was in our first cycle," I snapped, "before he made me his slave! That's what he would have done on Terra, don't you get it? What do you think would have happened to us if we hadn't killed him? What do you think would have happened to your world?"

Zidane held something back, something he was just dying to say to me. He fumed, then threw himself down onto the closest stool. He took a deep breath.

"Don't say that like you weren't planning on just taking his place and becoming just like him."

"I would have never been like him," I insisted. He would have obliterated your Gaia from all memory. Not a single person on Terra would know the sacrifice."

He rolled his eyes. "But you only actually obliterated entire kingdoms. And you created new life solely to force them into doing what you just said."

"Well, good thing I'm here now," I replied. "No Mist, no politics, no civilians. What was Chaos thinking, what good am I here?" I paused, momentarily unable to keep going after that odd note.

Zidane leaned forward. "You've uh, had some time to think about what you're doing here," he said.

"I did consider disappearing into Gaia," I admitted. "The way you had. I'd insinuated myself into a high-ranking family in Treno, I could have had a comfortable life."

"But you knew Garland was up there," he continued. "Hell, I bet you couldn't even look up and enjoy the stars without seeing him there."

What good was the view of the heavens from Gaia, compared to how I imagined it to be from the throne I would build over Garland's remains on Terra? How enticing could the dark frivolity of Treno really be when I was promised an eternity of radiant light?

"The Kings, right?"

I frowned. "There would have been neither kings nor queens," I said, though I had somewhat lost the conversation.

"The King family," he clarified. "You know I broke into your place once."

"Are you serious?!"

That just made him laugh. "Why didn't you kill me?"

"I wasn't there, or I would have. What incompetent security—"

"No," he interrupted, "I meant back on Terra."

When I didn't respond, he kept at it as if he'd never broken pace. "Though if you want to talk about your incompetent security, I've got bad news for you. My buddy Amarant..."

"It plainly takes on more significance than it deserves," I said to him. "One action of defiance, against the weight of all others, doesn't balance the scales. You're a sentimental moron."

Zidane grimaced. His hand wandered to an uncorked bottle, but he seemed to already know it would disappoint him. "So you're telling me I don't want to know."

"I'm merely calling attention to the conditions that allow you to speak with me in a civil manner. I'll have no denial on your part, or exploitation of it on mine. I did not kill you, because I did not feel like it. There was nothing more to it than that."

When I was sulking in my banishment, I'd nursed my wounds and convinced myself how brilliant it had been to strand him on Gaia instead of killing him outright.

Now Garland would have to be more careful, I had told myself. He couldn't risk obliterating his most valuable Terran creation. That care would give me time. Perhaps I could even reach out to him after he'd grown, tell him the terrible truth of his life, leaving out one small detail: Garland had loved him as if he were his own child. The likeness he had used to create Zidane had been a princess, Sarah -

I stifled a gasp. I sat down. Quite dramatic, really, if it weren't for the fact that the something I had just remembered had struck me with the force of a blade.

"You got something you wanna share?"

I didn't look at Zidane. I looked at my reflection, dark and warped in the glass bottle.

I had always adored mirrors. There weren't many of them in Garland's stronghold, but there were plenty of reflective surfaces in which I could catch a glimpse of myself. I would run my fingers through my hair, wondering what it would look like if I had more. My hair was shorter then, the feathery abnormality at my hairline cropped.

Garland shamed me for my vanity. He said to me that whenever I look in a mirror, I should not see myself, but the legacy of Terra.

You look like the Warrior of Light, the Emperor had said to me. The Warrior of Light, the manikin made from Cid of the Lufaine... and the bright star that illuminated Terra at its height. The star to which Garland owed his entire legacy.

Zidane took the bottle out of my sight. "Hey, what's going on in there?"

Sephiroth was many things, but he was not a fool. "I'll speak to Garland," I said to him. "With you by my side."

We didn't talk about it any further. Somehow, we began talking about what we missed. Not the serious things, not the things we'd taken away from each other.

So he didn't talk about how he missed the girls, knowing that we both knew he really only missed his princess. We talked about Lord Avon. We talked about the people. Well, he talked about the people.

"You don't miss Treno? You were living in that, that auction house, all those nobles," he pointed.

I shook my head. "Do I miss constantly having to read into every tone? The games they played with each other to ease the suffering of their privileged idleness, and dear gods, the chatter?"

"Come on, give me a break. If you didn't live for that then you wouldn't have done it. You loved pulling one over them, didn't you? If you couldn't endure it, you would have found another way."

I sighed. "Where did I find the energy... the patience? Do you know what I want?" I looked over at the uncorked bottle. "I want a damn drink."

Zidane laughed. "That sounds pretty good to me." For a second, we'd both nearly forgotten where we were.


	13. Chapter 13

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy IX and Dissidia are the property of Square Enix. The people who came together to make these characters and their worlds made their fans a home to which they will always return.

 **CHAPTER THIRTEEN**

Bartz and I were standing on the deck of the _Prima Vista_ together, looking at the doorway. There was a pile of shattered glass next to him. It used to belong to the manikin that had slipped through not five minutes earlier.

I didn't want to be the first person to say something. "You don't think…" I began.

"I don't know," he said. "I'd be worried if the manikin had made it back through, or if there were a pack of them. Just one by itself? I'll keep an eye on things here. We should have your brother take a look at the doorway."

"You think that's a good idea?"

"You have a better one?"

"Not unless you want to step up and try doing it yourself," he replied. "You want to stay here instead? I'll ask him. I won't tell him you immediately thought he had something to do with this."

I grimaced. I did not want to try to wrestle with a doorway by myself. "Fine, I'll go." He'd said that to get me to do it, and we both knew it. I went inside.

When I got to the room we'd given to Kuja, I knocked first. Then I yelled at him through the door. I didn't get a response. He was so deeply asleep he somehow didn't hear me, he was ignoring me, or he was dead. I opened the door.

Another option: he wasn't in his room. My first thought was that he'd connected the doorway back to the rest of the world and escaped, which explained the manikin.

"Where are you?" I asked into the empty air, giving him the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes he was paying attention, and responded with that mind-trick of his. This time, I didn't hear him.

I fought the urge to go right back up to the deck and tell Bartz that Kuja was gone. I swung by Cloud's room, which only made him suspicious. After deflecting that, I began wandering the ship.

I found Kuja curled up in a chair in the lower levels, his tail draped visibly over his boot. He stared into the air in front of him as if my footsteps had just shaken him from sleep. There was a closed book on his lap. The embossed letters on the cover caught just enough of the light for me to make out the title. It was mine, not that he would have known that.

It was a collection of legends, the second volume. The eidolon Ramuh had told one of those legends to us, the one about the rebel who kept silent about his ally's heroic sacrifice. I didn't have to see the pages to know there wasn't anything actually printed on them.

"Did you ever come to the Chaos Shrine?" he said, his voice rising from the dark like smoke.

I frowned and went over to him. "What are you talking about?"

"I thought I'd..." he began, then he shook his head. "I thought I remembered asking you to come to the Chaos Shrine during… was it the tenth cycle? It couldn't have been. Maybe I'd just imagined it."

I fought the urge to correct him. It seemed the silence was broken on the era of the Angel of Death. I knew I should have recognized his willingness to talk about it with all it deserved, but I got nervous all this rest was giving him the time to sort through some things better left unsorted. Like how he'd broken free of Garland for good.

"Did we ever fight before the last cycle?" he asked me then. "Once I daydreamed that we'd fought Garland together. I had Tranced, somehow. I remember what Garland had me do, but whenever you were near… he separated me from the moment. I've been having some trouble…"

He looked at me strangely then, with a piercing focus I did not expect.

"Hey, so I came looking for you because Bartz fought off a manikin that had slipped through the doorway," I said quickly. "I don't think we're floating around in the… whatever… anymore."

"So you did," said Kuja, retreating back into distraction. It didn't feel right to leave it on that note, but the longer I left it, the more suspicious it would be.

"Don't you want to come take a look at it?" I prompted him.

That roused him. "Of course," he said. "What sort of manikin was it?" He stood up, left my book on the seat of the chair, and followed me up to the deck.

"Not one of Sephiroth's," I answered as we climbed the stairs. "One of those ones who don't look like anyone we know."

I winced as the sunlight on the deck hit me. It took me a second for my eyes to adjust. Bartz waved the both of us over. The pile of shattered glass from the manikin was still beside him.

Kuja picked up one of the pieces and held it up to the light. He scrutinized it, then disintegrated it. "I don't recognize the color," he confirmed.

He raised his palm to the doorway. A strange disturbance in the air flocked to him, like the tendril of a vine. He twisted it, examining it, and then gave a weary sigh that meant nothing to either of us.

"Can't fault this world for attempting to maintain the illusion that it has a past and a soul," he murmured. He glared at the two of us. "Thank you so much for offering to stare at me while contributing nothing, but really, I can take care of this on my own."

I crossed my arms and got comfortable. "Sure, we'll just leave you with a doorway that's connected to who knows where."

Bartz elbowed me in the ribs. I gritted my teeth; he'd really gone for it. Then he headed back inside the ship.

Kuja gazed up to the sky, pleading to it to grant him patience. "Perhaps I should leave it open. I forgot you have absolutely nothing better to be doing right now," he said to me.

"Sounds about right," I replied with a grin that didn't reach my eyes.

He turned his back to me and got to work. He didn't remember that I'd come to meet him at the Chaos Shrine, or what had happened after that. He didn't remember the fight Garland forced him into, or the Trance that allowed him to escape.

After I'd left the Chaos Shrine, I'd found refuge in the cradle of the rocky shore of a placid lake. I just needed someplace to think. But all the memories stirred by my battle with Kuja were too much at once. I didn't know who I was anymore. I didn't know anything. I couldn't think at all.

"You always have to show off, don't you?" said a voice. The rocks did strange things to sound here. Was the water itself talking to me? Was that what was going on?

I'd been found. This was a battlefield. I should have grabbed my daggers, bared my teeth, put up my guard.

Instead I just kept staring into the water. There was something wrong with it. It wasn't supposed to look like this. It was too dark. Where was the blue illumination? And there was something else, too. Wasn't it supposed to bring me pain? That's what the others like me had said about the blue light.

This world couldn't get anything right.

"You just had to go off on your own like that, didn't you," the voice continued. "Lucky I learned all your tricks when we were traveling together, or I never would have found you."

I could almost place the voice. Maybe it was Blank. Maybe it was mine, but the way it sounded to other people, not the way it sounded in my own head. I couldn't be in my own head. There was too much in there. There wasn't any room for me.

"Why would you ever come with me," I murmured. "I don't… know anything." Even my own words were familiar to me.

I was created in order to destroy. "I'm not even meant to be… over here," I said. I couldn't quite reach where 'here' was. There was a gulf in the way, a yawning divide between the ruins of Terra and this world.

Some form moved in close to me in my peripheral vision, jumped down the jumble of rocks to the abrupt lakeshore. Not blond, not empty-eyed, no tail. It was Bartz.

"You called me your friend," he said to me. He put his hand on my shoulder, forced me to face him. "If I let you wander off like this, would you call that friendship?"

"Friendship," I repeated. Why didn't he just take that sword of his and plunge it into my gut right now. Save us both a whole bunch of trouble. "You don't know me at all," I told him. "I'm…"

He looked at me. I couldn't stand it, that naïve care. He wouldn't look worried if he knew. He'd be breaking me down in his head, figuring out my weaknesses. I was his enemy.

"You've always been there for me," he said. "That's all I need to know."

I shoved him away from me. "I'm an empty vessel," I told him. "I'm just waiting for Chaos to get around to me—"

"What are you talking about? You're a Warrior of Cosmos."

Either he was mocking me or he really just didn't get it. "Shut up," I said. "Just shut up, you stupid…"

He was chosen by the Crystal. His father was chosen before him. What did he know. The only reason I wasn't standing by Garland's side at that moment was because Kuja got jealous.

It wasn't even Cosmos who had intervened on my behalf. I hadn't escaped Garland by some noble means, or even by dumb luck. I owed it all to Chaos, right from the start.

"Just leave me alone," I said to him, weakly. "I don't want to trouble you anymore."

"You're not troubling me," he replied. "You're worrying the hell out of me. So if you don't want to trouble me, then why don't you come with me. We'll talk through this together, and then maybe—"

"Stop babysitting me!"

He looked at me. I was beginning to scare him. Good. Maybe he'd bother to listen.

"Look," I said, "I'm not a real Warrior of Cosmos. I was just a hairbreadth away from becoming the destroyer of Alexandria! I can't accept your friendship so easily!"

"Well that's just too bad," said Bartz as he dropped to the ground. He folded his legs under and got comfortable. I wanted to punch him. I wanted to hug him. I couldn't figure out what I wanted, so I just sat down next to him.

"His voice," I said, shaking, "he followed me into Memoria. I thought I'd been able to get rid of his connection to me by surrounding myself with my friends. But he was dead—or gone, or something—but he guided me through, he sent me after Kuja—he didn't force me. I wanted to go, because I thought I was doing the right thing. But what if it wasn't, what if… you really think you can keep me from him, when they couldn't?"

"Zidane, Zidane," he said then, as he took my hands in his. As if he were pulling me out of a pit. "Who's 'Kuja'? I'll listen here as long as you need, but I need you to try to make sense of it. For me. Clear your head and make sense of it for me."

"You don't get it. Your dad was a hero. Mine was… mine wasn't even my father. He made me like a doll, and he replaced me when he couldn't use me. Just like my brother..."

"Who are you talking about?" Bartz demanded. "Who is 'he'?"

"Garland!"

He swore. He stared at me, frozen. This was it. This was him finally figuring it out. This was me, losing him. I pictured myself kneeling before the throne in the Chaos Shrine. I pictured myself at my brother's side, dressed in black and white, unable to say a single word for myself.

I hadn't saved Burmecia, or Cleyra, or Lindblum or Alexandria. I couldn't even protect the Black Mages from Kuja. I did everything he wanted me to do. I opened the gate to Terra. I learned the truth. I fought Garland. I saved the Genomes, and I went into Memoria. I was not alone. I had friends who believed in me. And I believed in them.

None of that mattered. None of that was good enough. I was never going to see my friends again. They were gone. Kuja must have destroyed the Crystal, and it was only my heritage that kept me alive and brought me here. Because I'd failed to stop him, I was no better than him. I'd had Cosmos's pity, but she could only keep me from the truth for so long.

Bartz wrapped his arms around me. "I don't know what to tell you," he said to me, "I may not understand where you came from, but I know who you are. And I think you know who you are, too."

"That's what's freaking me out," I muttered into his shoulder. "What if I have to fight you?"

He pulled away. "Okay," he said, his voice sharp, "now I'm just disappointed in you. You really think you're going to do anything except what you want to do?"

"I don't know!" I insisted.

"What do you even want to do?" he asked. "You think I believe that? Tell me, right now. What do you want to do?"

"I want to talk to Cosmos. But what if I call her and she doesn't… answer me…"

He stood up. Then he bent down and hiked me up along with him. "You don't need to talk to Cosmos. You need to go on a walk. Let's go on a walk."

It wasn't just a walk. It was a long talk.

I couldn't believe that Kuja had asked for my help. As much as I knew of him now, he would never do such a thing. Even if he needed my help, he would never ask.

Why would being forced to fight me make him Trance? Trances were for protecting what was important. When you were so angry and outmatched that it all just caught alight. I couldn't forget the way he looked at me when I said I wouldn't help him. Hurt, like he didn't know what else he expected.

"He held my friends hostage. One of them was a little girl. Who was raised by moogles because our – because Garland wiped out her entire village."

"I don't know," said Bartz with a sigh. He reached down and plucked a blade of grass. "I'm the one who told you to give this guy a chance. He tried to get you to meet him, then he fought you, and then he asked you for your help. If I'd done even one of those things that you remember him doing, and I wanted to ask you a favor, I wouldn't start with - hey, I killed your girlfriend's mother and destroyed her kingdom. Can you loan me five gil or what?"

I snorted. "That's not what he said at all."

He tossed the blade of grass out into the air like a small spear. It got caught up in the wind, and was carried out of sight. "That's what I'm trying to say."

Then he frowned. "You hear that?"

I listened, and I heard the telltale clink of glass. I drew my daggers and tried to focus. I didn't want to deal with a manikin.

From the sound of it, I guessed there would be one, maybe two. We were swarmed. I felt a vague tremor of magic in the air around me. The chaotic rainbow blur of crystal and sunlight revealed a pillar of gold. I realized it was the Emperor at the same time I realized Bartz was no longer standing next to me.

The manikins made way for the Emperor. With a wave of his hand, the manikins closest to me backed off, and then marched away entirely. It was just the two of us.

"What have you done to Bartz?" I demanded.

"Nothing," said the Emperor. "He's probably wondering what I've done to you. I heard an interesting rumor," he added without so much as a how-are-you. "Normally I do not care for rumors, but most rumors are not interesting. Is it true that you were there when our Angel turned into a firebird-like creature and fled Garland's side?"

I'd already drawn my daggers, which should have been enough of a response for him. I buckled down on my guard.

The Emperor sighed. "Put those away," he said as he set down his staff and sat himself onto a rock as if it were his throne. "The only magic I've cast is the magic that will keep anyone else from hearing what we're about to say to each other."

I didn't move. "So nobody can hear me scream, right?"

The Kuja I remembered would have at least humored me with a self-aware glower and a suppressed smile. The Emperor just stared at me in confusion. "So nobody can hear me making a deal with a Warrior of Cosmos," he clarified. "You know how to kill him. You've done it before."

"Are you… we're not talking about Garland, are we," I said.

"I can only imagine that sooner or later, our Angel's altered state will drain him," the Emperor pointed out. "When it does, he will revert to his ordinary form and Garland will reclaim him. If we kill him ourselves, then he will revive and become Garland's puppet again, but his memories will be gone. Garland's hold on him will be complete. If he were one of you, we could have a manikin strike the final blow, but this won't be that easy. So you see… your input is welcome."

With Kuja gone, there would be one less barrier between this tyrant and Garland. Firion wouldn't like that at all.

"I'm not gonna help you kill my brother."

"Your brother?" the Emperor repeated. "So cruelty strikes in the same way twice… but why not? Afraid of what your role will become in the battle with him gone?"

"You wish. I'd still have plenty to do with the likes of you around."

"You're a loyal ally," said the Emperor. "That's certainly worth something to Firion. Tell me, though, isn't it worth a great deal more to Bartz Klauser?"

Violet light flared out from the Emperor's palm and unfurled into a frame, inside which I saw Bartz unconscious on the slick floor of a dark room. Wicked-looking crystalline bars pulsed with faint blackness around him.

I kept my curses to myself. "Then why did you even bother asking?" I said to him. "Should have started with that. Could have saved us both a lot of time."

"Now I know I can't trust you to help me slay the Angel. You'll try to outsmart me, which, I'll have you know, will end in failure."

Bartz deserved to be saved over Kuja, any day. I knew that, but I still wanted to find a way out of this.

The Emperor was powerful, no doubt about it. He listened to reason, or at least his version of reason. Better him than Kefka. Though honestly there were people on Chaos' side that I'd have preferred for what I had in mind. Cecil's brother Golbez, for one. Golbez didn't have the motivation, though. The Emperor did.

If the Emperor could do this himself, he would. "Why can't you take him out yourself? What made you seek me out?"

"His magic," the Emperor answered simply. "I've observed and studied it, but it works in strange ways. You have dealt with it before in its pure form, cast by him without Garland's influence, in a world outside this one. You can give me the knowledge I need to overpower him."

There wasn't really any getting away from Garland's influence on that front, but I didn't tell him that.

"What if we approached this problem differently?" he proposed. "You'll help me find him before Garland does. When he reverts to his ordinary form, you will fight him until he's weak enough for me to seal him in sleep. I will spread word that he's fallen by your hand. He will regain the strength he needs to resist Garland's control. He will wake as if revived, and he will truly join our ranks."

"I don't think so. Since now I know you just want to kill him," I said.

I did wonder about the Warriors of Chaos and their relationship to the god himself. Why they pledged to him. The Cleyrans watched the sandstorm that surrounded their home, this howling unceasing beast. They found a lot of beauty in it, and prayed to it as their protector. It was all a matter of perspective.

The Cleyrans' source of protection was a magic artifact in a harp that they themselves played, along with a sacred dance, in order to keep the sandstorm going. That sounded closer to the truth about the relationship between Chaos and his followers.

From what I could tell, Chaos hardly gave them solace or even unified them all that much. Their alliance was fragile. The problem was, they were so much more powerful than us. There wasn't the chance for them to self-destruct unless one of them made that their goal from the start.

My brother, the charmer. The manipulator. The reaper. The one who would destroy something that couldn't be his. My brother's free will was the key to winning this battle for good.

"If we go through with your plan, when he wakes up, he'll become my problem," I told the Emperor. "My problem, and Garland's problem. How do you feel about that?"

That made the Emperor smile. "It's more than I'd hoped to hear. Very well then. Where would you have us begin our search?"

"We don't need to do any searching," I said, thinking of the Crystal World deep within Memoria. I knew I had seen it somewhere before. "I know exactly where he is."

I didn't know what to expect when I showed the Emperor what I could do with my Terran magic. I insisted that I'd given him that much, he could release Bartz, but he just chuckled and began to build his trap.

It was mesmerizing in its precision, almost hypnotic. His hands moved with a steady and thought-through purpose that scared me.

When he was finished, he let me see Bartz again. He was safe, relatively, though going stir-crazy pacing back and forth. I asked if I could talk to him, if he had any idea what was going on. "Soon enough, he won't ever have to know," the Emperor assured me. All I thought was that he had better be right.

It took a long time to pin down the right fragment. I'd only been there once before, when I had no idea it was the closest I would get to home. It did feel familiar, but Bartz said it felt familiar, too. I figured it was just what the place was, a place that anyone could half-remember, if they tried.

I stepped onto the crystal ground and froze. The last time I'd stood there, I was with the people I loved. Now I was standing there with a tyrant who had destroyed kingdom after kingdom in the name of glory, and who had kidnapped my closest friend here. The Emperor slipped into the shadows before I could even turn around to tell him to hide.

When I'd come here before in search of Kuja, he was floating by the Crystal, facing me. Now there was only an echo of the Crystal waiting here for us. He was standing, gazing up at it, with his back turned to me. He hadn't noticed us.

"Hey," I said. I didn't go out of my way to raise my voice, but somehow it was too loud here.

Kuja didn't turn around. "Just go away," he told me. "You've made it abundantly clear you'll play no part in this battle."

I was supposed to pick a fight with him, I reminded myself. He needed to be distracted and worn down, or else the Emperor's trap spell wouldn't do any good, even with the help I'd given him. There was a lot riding on this going well. Bartz's safety, Cosmos' victory.

"I'm not going anywhere," I told him. "We've got something to sort out, you and me. I'm sorry you weren't Garland's favorite, but there's still the small matter of you destroying everything I've ever cared about."

That made him laugh. "This again?" he asked. "You really are beginning to sound like a broken record. Or maybe a record that just continues to be reset. Either way, you're annoying me."

He was captivated by the illusion of the Crystal, floating unbroken in space. He gazed at it the way someone else might gaze at their lover.

"Better pay attention to me when you're talking to me. Or you might get caught by surprise."

With a drawn-out sigh, he turned to face me. "Zidane, my dear brother," he said then, "you have my word. As annoying as you are, I will not lay another hand on you for as long as we reside within this world."

I couldn't believe this. How could he maintain that Trance and still appear to be so calm? It was all just an act. I just had to get under his skin. Somehow.

"That's your new strategy? Passive resistance? Did your god give you that idea?"

"Chaos is no god of mine," he snapped. There it was. There was the anger.

"You were afraid I'd be better than you, weren't you," I told him. "I remember everything you said to me when you sent me to Oeilvert. That I was too dumb to use magic. So if I've managed to learn magic, then what's that make you?"

I tried to picture specific Terran glyphs that I'd seen before. They swelled up inside me and roared like a tide. It looked impressive, up until it broke and lapped harmlessly at his feet.

"Zidane," he said sweetly, "have you come here to be my Angel of Death?"

"It wasn't my idea," I told him. "That credit goes to our old man."

"You chose Garland over me?" he said, his voice hardly above a whisper. The light from the air around him collapsed into bright white stars. I barely dodged in time.

I couldn't concentrate on the fight. It kept slipping between the one actually taking place and the one we'd had so long ago. I would see Dagger at my side and I would be distracted – was I really seeing her? Was she here with me? Was she trapped in this world too? – only for her to disappear. A wayward spell would remind me of Vivi, only for its Terran signature to mark it as plainly Kuja's. The sound of my own blades evoked Steiner and Freya.

There was one aspect of this fight that I could focus on, however. Just like the one Garland had forced him into, he had no intention of winning.

This was wrong. I couldn't sort the reasoning out yet, but I suddenly felt in my gut that I couldn't fight him for another second. If I continued, then so much would be for nothing. So much of what, I wasn't sure, but regret turned my daggers heavier than stone.

"Stop," I shouted to him. "I lied. I'd never choose Garland over you."

He paused, the energy around him only building in strength and ferocity. "What kind of pathetic ploy are you—"

"I mean it," I said, and I put my daggers away. I dropped my guard. I stood there, defenseless, before the power that tore apart an entire world.

"When I was in Pandaemonium, on Terra," I said to him, "before you came, I told Garland I wouldn't join him. I told him I would take him down if he threatened Gaia any further. And he…"

I didn't know how to say it. So I just said what came to me. "He decided he would get rid of me. Make me an ordinary Genome, just like that. There was this cold red light, and I couldn't… I felt myself going so far away…"

"A cold red light," he repeated. "If that's true, then how did you manage to regain yourself by the time I came to the surface?"

"If it weren't for my friends, I wouldn't have. I would have just been another one of those empty-headed Genomes in Bran Bal."

He shook his head. "I don't believe you," he insisted, though it didn't sound like he believed that, either. "What's your point?"

"I don't know—that Garland didn't care about me, at the end of the day? That neither of us mattered, or we didn't for the reasons we should have. There was always going to be another down the line. Please, listen to me."

He did. Somehow, he believed me.

"I never knew," he said softly.

He fell out of his Trance. Scarlet feathers drifted in the air around him. He looked at me as if I'd knocked all the air out of his lungs. All the color had been drained from him. Once again, he was Garland's black and white Angel of Death.

"Promise me that you'll defeat me," he said then, "promise you'll find me, and you'll keep me away from Chaos, no matter what I say or do. You're going to have to be very good at being smarter than me, because if you let me down, I will never forgive you—"

He wanted me to take him away from Chaos. "Shut up, you don't have to say anything more," I interrupted him. "And I'm not promising you what I've already done."

"… what?"

"I'm gonna find you next cycle, and I'm gonna take you away from Chaos."

The Emperor took that as his cue. He stepped out from behind a broken crystal pillar.

Kuja took one look at him and stepped back. His eyes flashed with fire. "What's he doing here—what have you done—"

"I've killed you," I said softly. "Kind of. You're just gonna sleep for a little. When you wake up, you'll be strong enough to be free from Garland forever."

For a moment, Kuja's face became a blank mask. Between fending off Garland's call and the Emperor, he didn't stand a chance.

One by one, Kuja's defenses were stripped away by the magic I'd had a hand in creating. He had to know he was outnumbered and overpowered. Still, his will wasn't broken. He somehow made it seem like he was looking down on the Emperor, even though he'd sunk to his knees.

If this was how he acted now, it was hard to believe Garland had ever managed to gain enough control over Kuja to make him his Angel of Death in the first place. I couldn't imagine how he'd done it.

"I only want to help you," the Emperor said to Kuja as he succumbed to the spell. I didn't move, even after our trap extinguished.

Then Kuja began to fade away. This world was taking him. I started, trapped between going to him and going after the Emperor.

I made my choice. Terran glyphs swam in front of me and I directed them towards the Emperor. "What do you think you're doing?"

He snapped his focus to me. "We must allow the dragon take something, at least," he said. "Or would you prefer he remembered this?"

Kuja's form became solid once more. The slightest rise and fall of his chest convinced me he was only asleep. He laid there like some enchanted prince in a fairytale. A prince who had to be saved from himself.

I fought back drowsiness as lingering glyphs attached to my skin before they disappeared. Maybe it was just a trick of the eye, but color seemed to be fading back into his clothes. Darkest plum and gold, just like I remembered.

Every few seconds those glyphs stirred on the surface of his skin, violet ink disappearing on bleached paper. "Even now, he fights," said the Emperor, amused.

That worried me. Was the spell hurting him? Was he strong enough even now to break free? What if he woke up and walked straight back to Garland?

That would be worse than anything Kuja imagined would happen to him. Worse than him yielding his body and his soul to the churning cycle of Terra's revival. Worse than being left unloved, worse than being tossed aside.

Garnet – my Dagger – was more important to me than anything else. I'd shouted that on top of Alexandria Castle. If I really wanted to get home and back to her as quick as I could, then what was I doing? Getting Kuja out of Chaos' hands was the fastest way home.

Sure. Whatever I told myself.

"He doesn't want to be here," I said to him. "He doesn't want to fight this battle. Let me take him with me. I'll make sure Garland won't reclaim him. If I know him, then he'll kill Garland first. I'll help him. This is hell for him. Four cycles is long enough. He doesn't deserve this."

"Well, if a Warrior of Cosmos thinks that one of us is getting more than he deserves," the Emperor said drily. He gazed down at his handiwork. "I remember the two of you from your first cycle. You both hated each other so much."

I shook my head. "I was summoned a cycle after him."

He frowned. He wasn't used to being corrected. He opened his mouth to say something, and then decided against it. He wasn't being polite, or holding back. He was waiting for me to put it together myself.

Kuja had killed me. There was a piece of my life that was missing now, that could never be reclaimed.

The Emperor had recruited me because he told me believed I knew how to kill Kuja, all while he supposedly had evidence to contradict that this entire time.

Everything the Emperor had done here, he had done solely for his own gain. Now he could bide his time and have his rebellion against Garland without constantly looking over his shoulder, for the shadow of death.

As for why he'd told me at all, he was doing it to be cruel, to even now make this a victory for Chaos.

If I were Garland, I would have Chaos summon anybody and everybody else before Kuja. It made sense why Garland had sealed his free will away, as much as it hurt to see him endure it. The Angel of Death would never come after me, though. The Angel of Death didn't know hatred or envy, only his orders.

So that meant the Emperor had gone in on a pointless lie, and I had been summoned later than Kuja after all, or Garland had allowed Kuja free rein on the battlefield during our first cycle, even though he told me he only used Kuja to spy on his other warriors. Why do that, only to subdue him from that point onwards? Because he'd killed me? Garland wasn't stupid. If he didn't want that to happen, he never should have allowed Kuja on the battlefield in the first place.

I imagined a cruel smile on Kuja's face when he realized what he'd done. He didn't know, then, what he knew now. Neither of us mattered to Garland.

"I would have done it anyways," I said to him. "So thanks for your help." I started to slip my arms under Kuja, to take him away from this place. I'd hide him somewhere deep in Cosmos territory where he'd be safe. Maybe I could talk to our goddess into letting me keep him in the Sanctuary itself.

The Emperor placed the end of his staff on my arm. "Not just you," he said to me then. "How do you think he motivated you to fight him? He attacked your friend. Your friend who will still be in great peril even when I've released him. The battle is not yet over."

"Now you're just trying to see how much you can mess with me," I said to him.

"Why would I do such a thing?" the Emperor said, his voice bare of any gloating. "You've done me a great favor."

The strength went out of my arms. I pulled them away from Kuja and crossed them over my chest. I didn't want to be touching him, I didn't want the last thing I touched to be him.

I tried reasoning with myself. What made that any worse, really, than anything he'd already done?

He'd done that here. He could come after me all I wanted. We were our own world. We were Gaia and Terra. We were Alexandria, the Iifa Tree, Bran Bal. We were our Memoria.

He'd crossed a line when he went after Bartz. Not in the sense that Bartz was innocent and had nothing to do with our battle. I knew better than that, I knew that wasn't something Kuja would have ever cared about. Bartz wasn't a part of Gaia or Terra. This place had taken ahold of him, long before Garland had made him his Angel of Death. He belonged here now.

"Kuja can bear his grudge against Garland just as well from our side," said the Emperor, almost gently. His gaze fell on the bleeding horizon.

What a thing to say. Even while plainly trying to say something comforting, he couldn't avoid the tactical advantage. He thought that would make me at ease.

I stood up. I nodded. We left the Crystal World together.

"You got what you wanted," I said to him then. "Everything you wanted. Release Bartz, and we'll go our separate ways."

He smiled. "I haven't gotten nearly everything I've wanted," he replied, "but I shall release him."

He opened his palm and showed me Bartz through the magic frame. I watched the crystalline stalagmites recede into the ground. I watched Bartz stare at the place where his bars used to be in front of him, suspicious of his newfound freedom. Then I saw Ultimecia. Bartz froze.

He bled before he moved. When he finally staggered forward, he closed his eyes and fell to the floor as Ultimecia eyed him with all the emotion of a statue. She nudged his body with her foot, and a small smile curled her lips. Bartz's body faded away.

"You hypocritical bastard!" I shouted. I felt like I'd been stabbed right in the chest.

"Now that it doesn't suit you, it's worthy of such condemnation?" he asked me. Earlier I hadn't heard a trace of gloating in his voice, but there it was now, shining brighter than his stupid-looking armor. "You can't have it both ways, Warrior of Cosmos. If that's what you truly are."

"I will kill you—"

I didn't get the chance. He stepped back and disappeared through a portal in the air. I dove into the air after him, but I was too late.

The Emperor was good for part of his word, if nothing else. Word of Kuja's death spread through the ranks, and caused its own sort of chaos. I spent the rest of the battle hunting him down, and very nearly lost Firion to the cause. After that I spent the rest of the battle on my own.

The eleventh cycle came to a close in a stalemate that left the world torn open wide. After the sun set for the final time, I fought my exhaustion and my wounds to face down the aggressor who pursued me even after the battle had ended.

To be fair, Garland did promise we would be enemies the next time we saw each other. I didn't understand why he'd picked this time to come after me. Nothing he did now would matter. We would be facing each other again soon enough.

"Why are you doing this?" I shouted at him in a moment's breath between blows.

"Your presence here is the result of a series of mistakes," he answered me. "I am simply correcting those mistakes."

"You're the result of a series of mistakes," I grumbled as I blinked the stinging sweat from my eyes. I was tired, so tired. I just wanted to go back to the sanctuary. Cosmos would be worried.

"You were summoned as a distraction. This distraction will no longer be needed. Your influence is detrimental to the purpose of this battle."

"You're the one who's no longer needed," I growled. It would have sounded better if I'd had the strength to say it loud enough for him to hear. It wasn't the time to make sense of what he was talking about. What happened if I died between cycles? Would I be gone forever?

Static electricity ran over my skin, then built up into a tight feeling in my chest. There was an insistent rush in my head and then a shockwave through my arms and legs. My clothes had been replaced with vibrant fur.

The air around us blazed and sputtered out, like a match that refused to light, a spark that refused to ignite. It reminded me of something I had not thought of in a long time.

The darkness that Kuja brought down on us when he attacked the Crystal was this very same darkness. I had flashes of a pale being waiting in the absence, looming over us. There was no winning against it. The only sense in fighting it would be like screaming into the void, to insist that once, we were here.

Who was this Garland, really? A strong, armored servant of Chaos, or the old man in the observatory of Pandemonium? Outside of memory and time, was there a difference? In this place, was he everything he was and everything he was ever going to be?

I didn't know if this dark knight was him before I knew him, or after. Maybe his soul survived in the in-between. Maybe it had come here and taken this form.

All I knew for sure was, he was winning.

A bright flash of light arced overhead. The Warrior of Light came from behind me and blocked Garland's attack.

I stared at him in shock. "How did you know—"

"You weren't at the sanctuary," he said. "You didn't answer Cosmos' call. Only a presence of great darkness could keep her from you."

I remembered we hadn't fought off the pale being in the darkness on our own. Kuja had saved us. And I'd gone after him. I'd wanted to save him.

"Warrior of Light," I said, breathless, "I need to go. Right now. I have to—no time to explain, but it could change everything."

"Then go," he said to me. He didn't even question me.

"You sure you've got this?" I asked him through gritted teeth.

He drew up his shield. His arm was no longer shaking. "I will not say that this is not your battle," the Warrior of Light told me, "but only that I was born to do this. Do you have faith in me?"

"Of course I've got faith in you," I said to him, knowing that he didn't question his faith in me for a second.

I dodged one of Garland's blows and tried to make my exit. The chain on his weapon caught me and tripped me up. I fell backwards and caught myself on my hands. The rush of the battle gave me the strength I needed to spring back up and defend myself.

"Where do you think you're going," growled Garland. I dodged his sword and hurried a few steps back.

"Sorry," I said with a grin. "I've got something more important to do right now. And so do you," I added, as the Warrior of Light moved in. I gave Garland a wave.

I didn't have time to travel to the doorway and enter the Crystal World. I didn't even think – I just reached out and suddenly the air was swimming with Terran glyphs. It was solid, not like a wall, but more like a curtain I could push my hand up against. My nail snagged one of the threads and then that thread crackled with the power of my Trance.

I pulled on that thread, and I screamed. I almost crumbled to the ground with pain. If I couldn't make a portal, then there was no way I was going to get there in time. I filled my mind with my memories of the Crystal World, of trespassing in a place I should have never been, a place no Genome was ever meant to go.

The air tore. I pushed through with my shoulder. I just barely managed to pass through, tail and all, before the portal snapped shut in defiance of my attempt.

I braced myself on the mineral ground. My vision swam. I dropped out of Trance, and for a moment, I thought I was going to pass out. I forced myself to breathe, and then I staggered to my feet. I swayed as I looked to the other end of the platform, where Kuja lay in enchanted sleep.

Except he wasn't lying there. He wasn't there at all. He was gone.

"Kuja?!" I cried out. My voice was hoarse. I'd ruined it when I'd opened the portal.

He could be anywhere in this place. Just because I didn't see him immediately didn't mean anything. He'd woken up, woozy, and then wandered off for a few feet. That had to be it.

"Kuja, it's me," I said as I dragged myself to the other end of the platform. My feet nearly slipped on the slick crystal ground. "I'm here to…"

I didn't know what I was there to do. "I'm here to take you to the sanctuary," I said. That was a reach. As if having Kuja physically in our territory at the start of the battle changed who claimed him.

I wasn't doing anything different. He'd fallen, and here I was, coming after him. How much had that affected anything the last time? He still ended up a Warrior of Chaos.

I needed to go to the Chaos Shrine. But I couldn't will myself to move. I just sank to the ground. Just for a second, I swore to myself. As hard as I tried, I couldn't remember what happened after I found him in the Iifa Tree. I couldn't remember if we'd made it out, or if he'd died, or if we both died there together.


	14. Chapter 14

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy IX and Dissidia are the property of Square Enix. The people who came together to make these characters and their worlds made their fans a home to which they will always return.

 **CHAPTER FOURTEEN**

I had returned to the Chaos Shrine. Not of my own will; I knew that much. I denied the call and fled as far from our lands as I could. It only took an instant of doubt, a single glance over my shoulder, for this world to conspire against me. Verdant grass shifted underfoot and turned to weary rough-cut stone.

The paintings of the four fiends had been torn down from the walls. Their frames and their canvases lay broken and gutted on the ground. In their place hung cold, beautiful stained glass panels. They depicted four figures, one of them Firion. I did not recognize the others.

The Emperor sat on the throne of Chaos with Garland's horned helm pinned under his gilded boot.

His superior posture amongst the ruins only made his gold armor look more desperate. I watched him as he rose like an uncoiling snake. Elegant, composed, luxuriating in his own existence.

Kefka stepped out from behind one of the pillars. His body came undone into a winged, grinning monstrosity. We trapped each other in our gazes.

Then the Emperor's head transformed into something not unlike a great medusa, and I was turned to stone.

I woke up in the narrow bunk on the _Prima Vista_. I tried to keep quiet as I shifted under the blankets, but there was little point. Zidane was already awake. His tail curled off the edge of the upper bunk, abstractedly twitching back and forth.

"Hey," whispered Zidane. Loudly. "You ever consider that we're dead? That this is where we went when we… can you even remember what happened in the Iifa tree? After?"

I was tempted to say nothing, to pretend I had fallen back asleep. "I can't say I do," I responded in the dark.

"Maybe because there's nothing to remember. Maybe that was it for us."

With a sigh, I sat up. "You really think that coming after me was a transgression worthy of being stuck with me for eternity?"

"You've given this some thought."

"Of course I've given this some thought, I've had nearly nothing to do but think for—however long we've been here."

"Especially when—" he began, but had the sense to stop himself before he followed that through. When I was Garland's Angel of Death. "Especially once you got all your memories back," he said instead.

After an uncomfortable silence, he hopped down from the upper bunk. "I'm going to go out on deck for a bit, keep Bartz company," he told me. "I'll check on Cloud for you."

I sat in the bunk for a few more moments. It wasn't that I didn't trust him. Of course I didn't trust him. He wasn't gloomy without reason. He was keeping something from me, something that actually mattered.

I put on my boots and my armor and left the small room. I had no intention of sneaking around, but when I found the three of them sitting around a table in the dining area, I knew that was what they would suspect.

"If he wants an end to this battle, that's great, but the way he wants to go about it... This isn't good. And I can't help but feel as if it's sort of, maybe, a little bit... my fault…"

Bartz was the first to see me. "Hey, Kuja," he said, with awkward cheer. "Join us. We were just talking about what we were going to do next. You know, to find our Crystals. Defeat Chaos."

Zidane looked guilty.

Cloud didn't see any point in going along with the two of them. "So let me get this straight. You want to take down the Warriors of Chaos for us?"

I remained standing. "I understand why the concept may be difficult for you to grasp, but yes."

"All of them?" he added, with disbelief. "How's that gonna go?"

Bartz leapt to my defense. "He's already taken out the Emperor, which we've never accomplished."

I had ended the Emperor's life, but the Emperor's soul had not resonated with me when his body faded away. Perhaps because I was in my Trance, perhaps my Trance had nothing to do with it.

"I'm not entirely sure how many I need," I told them. "If I had to collect only a few, I think it would be best to acquire the Emperor, Kefka, and Ultimecia… which makes the Emperor's death rather inconvenient."

Zidane crossed his arms and scuffed his boots on the floorboard. "That's everyone who was there the day you—the day we were ambushed."

Betrayed us. He was thankfully smart enough not to say that, either. Did he think I was suddenly too noble for revenge?

"Your point being?" I countered. He was the one who stood to benefit the most. One final act of defiance, thrown in Chaos' face. My supposed rival would win his happily ever after, thanks to me.

"What's that?" said Cloud, looking at the three of us, expecting answers. If he wanted them, he could get them on his own time.

"That brings us to the matter of the doorway," I said then, my voice cold. "Once we leave this place, it's unlikely we'll be able to use it as a refuge, as we have been."

"We also need to get a message out somehow to Squall and Firion," added Bartz. "They have no idea where we are, if we're even alive anymore. That's three of us down, out of ten, all at once. That's a serious blow. They'll be looking for us."

Cloud wasn't listening to Bartz. He was examining me.

"And then there's the matter of Sephiroth," I added softly.

"If you abandon us, that's putting your brother in a hell of a lot of trouble," he responded. "I still don't know if you really care about that or not, but it's something to think about."

"We're getting ourselves into a lot of trouble either way," said Zidane. "I can't really say any one of us has set out to hunt down the Warriors of Chaos like this. And we're going to have to make sure the others don't do anything 'helpful' because they don't get what's going on."

"Cosmos did tell us to find our Crystals," Bartz said to all of us, but seemed to be reminding specifically Zidane. "We can't lose sight of that, no matter what else we're trying to pull off."

"You're right," replied Zidane, with an odd attempt at a furtive look at me. That was beginning to annoy me.

As soon as Bartz and Cloud left the room, I closed in on Zidane.

"You can't blame me for talking to them about it," he protested before I could get a word in. "Bartz would have been hurt, and Cloud picks up on things like nobody's business. Which… you already know."

"They haven't dealt with me as you have. I'm sure they think I'm insane."

"Is this really going to work like you say it will?" he asked me then.

I couldn't bear for him to look at me with such genuine worry. I meandered along the bar, examining the fragment's attempts to recreate the airship in which Zidane had spent so much time.

"It would be easier if we had the _Invincible_ instead," I admitted to him. "I am still able to absorb their souls with my own vessel, but I'm slightly concerned about the effect it will have on me. It's not something I would wisely set out to accomplish on my own," I added, even though that had been my exact intent before Sephiroth decided to warn me against further involvement.

"You don't have to do it on your own," he said to me. "I want you to teach me magic."

I stifled a laugh. "You already use magic," I said, with some sincerity.

"You want to go after mages. I get that. It makes sense. But I've gotta be able to help you, and we both know I have no idea what I'm doing."

I had fully developed my magic from the remnants of Terra's knowledge and the spellbooks on Gaia. Garland had made him to be more powerful than me.

Magical prowess would bring Garland's attention to him. It would bring everybody's attention to him. He wasn't wrong, though, when he said we were walking into trouble no matter what.

Zidane wanted to return home. He'd do anything to make sure that happened. "You understand there's only so much I can do with the time and materials we have available," I said to him. "Battle magic ideally isn't taught in isolation. All disciplines inform and strengthen one another."

"You'll do it? You're serious?" he said. His eyes were sparkling. His enthusiasm was already intolerable, and we had not even begun.

"Should I not be?"

"Yeah—yes, of course, please, that would be amazing," he stammered.

"You will undergo the worst pain you have experienced in your entire life. I'm not joking," I said firmly when he smiled. "We should have started years ago. Before we even met in Burmecia, even. That's how far behind you are."

"I'm gonna regret this. Let's do it," he said as he turned to go back to our resting quarters.

I tripped him with a hastily cast barrier. "Where do you think you're going?" I demanded. "We're starting _now._ "

The look he gave me, you'd think I had only just then ruined his life.

We moved outside to the deck. Bartz and Cloud followed us out, but it was difficult to tell if they were genuinely curious or if they were simply starved of entertainment.

He drew his daggers and settled into his typical stance. It wasn't the worst form I'd ever seen. He didn't insist on locking his knees, or furrowing his brow into a splitting headache to make it seem as if he were devoting all his concentration to the task. There was only one problem.

"Put those away," I said to him.

"But Rusty used magic with his sword," he protested.

"He used my black mage's magic with his sword," I pointed out. "Besides, a weapon is a crutch. What if you're disarmed? Caught unawares? Are you going to tell your enemy to stop for a moment while you draw your blades?"

I stared at him, waiting, until he sheathed his blades and set them off to the side.

"It takes me less time to draw than it does to get through some spell," he muttered as he settled back into his impression of a mage's casting stance.

It was amusing, but underneath was a current of hostility that couldn't be ignored any longer.

"You shouldn't be so concerned," I asked him. "You're formidably incompetent on your own."

From the balcony, Cloud snorted. Bartz didn't hold himself back. "Come on, Zidane!" he cheered, to make up for laughing at his best friend.

 _You want to do this or not?_ I asked him so that only he could hear me.

He opened his mouth to speak, and only after that did he realize he couldn't respond in kind, not unless he learned to use magic properly.

 _You won't immediately be corrupted into a Warrior of Chaos if you learn magic from me,_ I assured him. _If nothing else, take solace in the knowledge that it's in my best interest you learn, so I won't lead you astray. Or, think of Vivi._

"You bothered to remember his name?" said Zidane aloud.

"Of course I did," I replied. "Now let's see your fundamentals. Fire first. No, don't move your arms like that, where did you even pick that up—"

It took some doing to convince him to set aside the posturing and theatrical exaggeration of every idiotic street wizard he had run across in Lindblum and Treno. With a tempered, almost instinctively refined intent, he produced a gentle flame in his cupped palms.

He didn't so much as flinch as it danced steadily in his hands.

"Does it hurt?" I asked him. That was one reason so many mages used staffs and rackets, but most of the Chaos mages had set them aside long ago, and they didn't even have Garland's favor on their side.

"It doesn't hurt. It's nice. But it's not very strong," he lamented.

"You already have strength. It's more important that you develop control."

He bit his lip. "Got it. What's next?"

Ice, I prompted him. Then lightning, then water. From our past fights, I was not surprised to confirm that his power manifested most readily in lightning. That element was also the one he struggled to rein in and control. Bartz and Cloud ducked under the railing to avoid electrocution.

"Where is your power coming from?" I asked him once I dispelled the runaway bolt. I ran my hand through my hair, through the snap of static.

"It's, uh…" he held his hands up, fingers splayed. He stared at his wrists and traced his fingers along his veins. "My arms?"

I laid a hand on my midsection. "Think of it coming from here. Magic is a practiced technique, same as swordplay or… pickpocketing. Whatever you do often enough, becomes habit. If you associate it with your arms, then your magic will be wrapped up in those muscles alone. Synchronize it with your breath, though, and you'll be able to rely upon the support of your entire body."

"So when you do that weird stance you do, you're making sure you keep it close—is that why you wear… those gauntlets?" he said quickly. I could tell that was not where he first wanted to end that sentence.

I rolled my eyes. He was losing focus. It was hardly unexpected for someone who let magic fly on instinct his entire life. "Let's take a look at your defensive skills."

Out of nowhere, I threw several volleys of lightning at him. On the last strike, his shield broke. It wasn't because I overpowered him; there was little point in that. It was for another reason.

Zidane doubled over as if the wind had been knocked out of him.

"I can't believe I'm saying this to you, but it's just as important not to overthink as it is not to underthink when you're defending yourself."

"Can't you just—you're not even going to teach me one spell?" he wheezed.

"Spells are meditative tools one uses to maintain focus for more complicated work. Anyone who uses incantations for this level of simplicity has no business wielding magic on the battlefield."

He glowered at me. "You would say that."

"You should have started learning while you made your living as a thief. You would have done so well for yourself you never would have gotten involved."

"And you could have destroyed Gaia as planned," he said. He breathed in deeply, only to choke on his own breath.

"Well, yes," I told him. "But then Garland would have taunted me with my imminent death all the same, so I suppose your involvement really doesn't matter to me."

That wasn't entirely true. "Oh! What if I'd never had my revelation about Trances without you and your friends?"

He groaned as he laid out flat on the deck. "So glad I could help."

He proclaimed he would be ready for another round after a short rest, but I knew our first lesson was already finished, even before Bartz and Cloud joined us on the main deck.

Bartz insisted on his own round of practice against my spells, while Cloud showed Zidane the materia he carried with him. As Zidane held one of the mineral spheres in his hands, it sparked with incompatible energy.

"I'm afraid to ask how much longer until I'm competent," he said once Bartz gave up and sat down cross-legged on the deck.

I joined them. "The rest of your life," I said. "Luckily you have forever, because it will take forever."

"Hey," he said to me, but he didn't know what to say next.

I hadn't even intended to allude to his unlimited years. I was simply making a joke about the nature of our unwilling servitude.

"We don't have forever though, do we?" he asked. "We need to be…

looking for our Crystals," he said. He suddenly seemed quite interested in the grain of the wooden boards.

"What do you want to do?" I asked him.

"I need to—"

"Shut up," I told him. What do you want to do? You want me to teach you magic. Bartz?"

"I want to win a bet," he said, beaming. It sounded like it involved the two of them being idiots.

"So that leaves you, Cloud," I said.

"What I want doesn't seem to matter, does it?" he responded.

"What you want is the only thing that matters," I argued. "If everyone did what they wanted, we would all be home by now."

"Home?" he repeated, confused. Then he said, "I want to know why everyone knows more about me than I do. I can't hide from Sephiroth forever. And I don't want to. I want to go after him."

I nodded, and hid everything I could never change behind a smile. "I agree. Sephiroth is enjoying himself far too much here. I'd like to help you make his life a living hell."

"So you can harvest his soul or whatever? I'm not saying I'm not on board, I'm just saying that sounds like a bad horror movie. A movie is—never mind," he added, not knowing I had already told him last cycle he didn't have to explain what a movie was to me.

"He stabbed me. He's troublesome," I countered. "And most importantly, he's a Warrior of Chaos. You really need to stop underestimating how far I'll go to ruin Garland's day."

Zidane and Bartz chuckled, but Cloud didn't get the joke. "Is that why you're here?" he wanted to know. "Some personal vendetta against Garland?"

"You know, I've never liked explaining things to someone twice," I said before I could help myself.

He examined me with an entirely new level of suspicion, but he left it alone. He developed a headache shortly after, and retired to the darkness below deck. I knew it was Sephiroth's influence testing the limits of my protection.

He would let it go on far too long before he outright asked for my help. I left Zidane and Bartz to their own devices.

I caught up to him in the corridor. "Don't bother lying to me," I said first. "What did he say to you?"

He sighed and stopped in the middle of the corridor. Plainly, he would have gotten rid of me if he could. "You really care that much about what Sephiroth's up to?"

"If I cared so much, then I would let you loose and follow you to him," I replied.

"Fair point."

He didn't say anything more. He brushed me off and went into his room. He closed the door behind him.

I didn't return to the room I shared with Zidane. I sat at the table scattered with notes, scale figures, and a crudely stitched-together doll.

I examined the doll for quite some time before I realized it was apparently supposed to be Princess Garnet. I chuckled, despite myself. I sat there amongst the collected fondness, taunted by the second chance this battle kept taking away from me.

This was how Zidane found me, when he finally came back inside. I held the poorly made doll up to him. "This is supposed to be Princess Garnet?"

He grinned. "Hey, that doll's a masterpiece."

He took it from me and sat down next to me. He stared at it for some time before he put it back where it belonged.

"About the Emperor," said Zidane with no small degree of unease. "He's really dead, right? Even if he comes back, he won't remember the previous cycles?"

This was the root of all his gloom? The Emperor, of all people? "He expended a great deal of effort here in his attempts to overthrow Garland. He contributed so much to the battle. His soul would have been a powerful one."

"Yeah, so why didn't you take it when you killed him?"

What an incisive question. "I wasn't thinking."

"You weren't thinking? I don't buy that," he challenged me.

"You're right, I'm lying," I said to him. "Or am I?"

He groaned and gave me a weak shove. "I'm serious."

My mind had been somewhere else. That wasn't the answer he wanted to hear. "I don't care what you believe," I told him.

He was quiet, and then the words tumbled out of him all at once. "I just keep thinking back to Gaia and Terra and… that other place. And I keep thinking about how I've never beat you. You've always just… been one step ahead of me. Of all of us. And then you saved us, just because… it was what you wanted to do. I'm just worried I don't really know what it is you want."

He never knew how close he came to defeating me on Terra. Well, 'close' wasn't the word, but he certainly made me put some effort into our little fight.

Garland made him to be better than me. He could trance, and I couldn't. All my fury was supposed to be directed at him, but that thought diverted it back to myself. I'd had my own share of anger, what was wrong with me?

The ecstatic force that rushed through me as my flesh bent to the will of my own power and rage wasn't all due to the flow of such magic through every vein in my body. I wasn't defective. I was just as good as Zidane. Terra would be mine.

And then Garland ruined everything, so I ruined everything.

I smiled, returning to the conversation. "Is this all just a ploy so you can learn my magical secrets and defeat me once and for all?"

He shook his head. "I just worry about how this is gonna work. I don't wanna go home without you."

After a moment, I admitted, "Me neither. If anybody survives this wretched place, it may as well be you."

"Sometimes I wonder if I deserve it, is all."

So his uncertainty about me hadn't been his great confession. He was holding something closer to his heart. Forget about what I want. What have you done, little brother? What are you planning to do?

We began his second lesson the same way as the first. I ordered him to put his weapons away, he complained, I made him show me his control over the fundamentals, and he complained and asked to learn something complicated.

"Absolutely not," I said to him from across the deck of the _Prima Vista_. "If anything, you should be learning recovery spells after what happened in Kefka's fragment. I was stabbed and I still had to do all the hard work. You should be embarrassed of yourself."

"You're gonna red mage me?"

"I don't know what that means—" I scoffed. "What's wrong with knowing how to defend and recover as well as fight? Are you so attached to your friends you reject the idea of being self-sufficient?"

"'Jack of all trades, master of none'," was his response. "You've already got my friends on your side. I want to be able to take on those mages on their own terms."

"That's my place, not yours," I reminded him. "You volunteered to learn how to be helpful. You can be helpful by learning to control your abilities and—"

I had the beginning of a thought.

"You were saying?"

"Shut up!" I snapped. "How good of a thief are you?"

He snorted. "Excuse me?"

"You said you broke into my estate in Treno once. You must be somewhat skilled at undoing complex magic."

"That was a special situation, but I can pick any lock in Treno," he bragged. "Spelled and unspelled alike."

I was glad to hear it. "Instead of teaching you how to become powerful," I said to him then, "what if I taught you how to use the skills you already have to undo the spells of those formidable mages you're so determined to defeat for me?"

"Like pre-cast barriers and traps," he said, catching on. "Kuja, you're a genius."

"I know."

There was no need for stances or distance. We sat down together on the upper deck, where we could better see Alexandria below.

"I'm going to weave together what we'll call a rudimentary spell, for magical defense. I want you to pay careful attention to what I'm doing. Not only will that teach you how to undo it, but it will give you an idea how to make your own spells more resilient."

I turned my palms to the sky and a grain of pale blue light instinctively formed at the tip of each of my fingers. Slowly, deliberately, I extinguished them until only the light at my smallest fingers remained.

I began the spell's shield-shaped foundation, with the same focus I had when I held a piece of charcoal in my hand and marked my movements as I drew them on the wall, so that I could later measure their precision.

"You're… going really slow right now, aren't you," he asked.

"Painfully slow, but it's for a good cause."

He raised his hands. "Can I… follow along?"

"If you'd like," I said to him. "Mine are asymmetrical, but that won't matter."

"Which one do I do?"

It took me a moment to understand what he was asking. "It's considered holy magic, but it doesn't have an elemental foundation. Think of something you want to protect from harm."

For him, it was an easy task. The smallest grains of vibrant light appeared at his fingertips. I undid my previous work and retraced my movements with him.

"What do you think of when you do this?" he asked me.

"I no longer rely on such conscious prompts."

"So you think about yourself."

"It's a self-defense spell," I reminded him. "But if you simply must know, I used to think of something along more hypothetical lines. I think of what would happen if I were defenseless, if I were unable to protect myself. It's fairly decent motivation."

A shadow crossed his face. After the shield foundation I moved into the series of Terran letters that followed. The darkness behind his eyes yielded to concentration.

Together we completed our geometric seals and let our hands fall. His flickered, but did not come undone.

"First, dispel your own. Then do away with mine. Not through brute force or by overpowering it with your own offensive magic," I said to him, "but using what insight you've gained from the casting."

He did away with his spell, and then stared at mine as if that was all that was required. "So it's like… picking a magical lock," he said to himself.

He thought for a moment, and then tapped his own controlled force into the finishing geometric seal. He followed it back to its source, which I purposely left unconnected to its end point, so it would be vulnerable. Once it was done away with, he only needed to erase one key Terran phrase to turn the entire thing into nonsense.

He found the correct one on his second try. I found myself smiling. I was oddly quite proud of him.

He gave a deep sigh of relief. "That wasn't so bad," he said. "But you don't do all of that when you fight. And I've never seen anyone else do it, either."

"There are a few different answers to that, but I think the one you're looking for is that the magic that comes through for you when you need it is the result of the hard work and effort you expend on rehearsal."

"Actually, I wanted to know the shortcut."

I laughed. "Your very blood is your shortcut. Why do you think I keep telling you not to worry about learning more powerful spells? The entire record of Terra's rise and decline dwells within you. Once you know what you're doing, you won't have to think about it. But we're getting distracted. Try this next one."

Twice more I made him follow my casting pattern and dispel my defenses. By the readiness with which he followed me, I could tell he was already beginning to recognize some Terran letters and phrases.

By the second spell, there was an odd tendency in the flow of his energy. He was working with an even amount of strength, but he wasn't in control. As he focused, the instinctive urge connected to his Trance built up like static electricity. There was a deeper interference within him, an interference I could not fathom.

I stood up. He followed suit. "Turn around," I ordered him. "Kefka's not going to let you watch his technique before he tries to kill you. On that note, if you pick up any sloppy habits from Kefka, I will kill you."

It only took a moment. When I told him to face me again, he stared at the spell I'd made for him with his jaw gaping slightly open.

"What the hell is that?" he demanded.

I needed to understand what the relationship was between the development of his magic and his Trance. "I'm afraid I can't tell you."

It was a spell that defined the difference between complicated and difficult. It not only gave its user protection against all fundamental elements, but it absorbed the energy of those elements and fed them into the resilience of the spell itself. I chose it because it was very, very annoying.

I left him one small break in the finishing seal. It took him longer than he wanted to in order to locate it.

Once the seal was gone, he stared at the feverish frieze of Terran equations, geometrical grammar, and precariously balanced metaphysics. Unlike the previous spells, this one's core did not stay in one place. It moved, twisted in on itself, and flipped as it desperately sought equilibrium.

It should have taken all of his concentration, but instead he seemed to be mulling over something that had little to do with the task in front of him.

Every false move turned his energy on him and lashed out at him in return. For an instant, the echo of his Tranced form snapped into sight.

"No brute force," I reminded him.

He succumbed to a burst of aggravation. Unbridled energy flared up from him and then dissipated into the air. "It really sucks seeing you here on the _Prima Vista_ with us, you know?"

That didn't have anything to do with the spell. "I don't know what you mean. I apologize…?"

The undercurrent of his Trance crackled through his skin. "Bartz keeps insisting that you didn't betray us—"

He said he didn't care what happened. He said he just wanted to move on and go home. He couldn't leave well enough alone.

"I… I didn't betray you," I said, my voice too soft for him to hear beneath the growing tidal surge.

"—I just keep thinking that if I'd managed to save you somehow from both Garland and the Emperor— if I hadn't screwed it all up, then you wouldn't have spent so much time over there—"

"I didn't betray you, you moron!"

The glyphs and the electricity retreated beneath his skin. "What?"

"It was an act! I did it to save your life! The three of them against us? What if I couldn't protect you somehow? What if you'd died?"

"What if I'd died…?" he repeated.

His gaze broke from mine as he swore. His expression hardened against himself as the power of his Trance eclipsed him.

His strength burned so brightly I couldn't even look at him. I threw my hand up over my eyes and squinted through my fingertips.

The fragment itself shook as a cacophonous rift split the air. He tore through my barriers as if they were gossamer. The doorway did the rest of the work. It wanted to rejoin its empty husk of a world so very badly, it opened right out onto the border between Cosmos and Chaos territory.

This could not happen. I refused to allow this to happen, but what did that matter? It was too late. He fled through the doorway.

I remembered well the dizzy rush of my Trance when I finally found it. He had tranced before, numerous times, but never like this.

My own secret desires and fears had buckled and broken once I was in my Trance. Garland certainly helped that along, but so had the power itself. It was fight or flight, with or against my very soul.

Whatever Zidane had bottled up inside of him, I feared what may happen if he unleashed it on the battlefield. He was not strong enough to take us home, but he was strong enough to make a mistake that would destroy his chances of ever seeing Gaia again.

After my fall through the Iifa Tree, he came to me and he said I would have rescued him too, if I were in his position. Then, I hadn't been so sure.

I certainly didn't look forward to telling him he had been right after all. I blinked away the afterimage his Trance seared into my vision.

"What the hell was that?"

Bartz and Cloud came out onto the deck. They took in the doorway bleeding open into the greater world beyond, then closed the distance between us.

"He took on too much at once. He's not himself," I told them. "I'm going to find him. The both of you need to stay here. I'll return shortly."

Bartz stepped between the doorway and me. "Right, like we're just going to let you wander off by yourself. What if you get lost?"

"I'm not going to get lost—" I began. I didn't have time for this. "What if you die? What if you lose your memories? Zidane would never forgive me."

Bartz chuckled. "Yeah, after everything else you've done, _that's_ gonna be what Zidane never forgives you for."

"Your disregard for your own life is stunning, considering your record. I've watched you die."

He stared at me. "I just got summoned last cycle," he said as if he honestly believed that, moments ago.

My first thought was that we had better things to do than be stunned by the terrible truth of the dragon's carnivorous savagery. This was overwhelmingly crushed by the look on Bartz's face.

"I was… it was an unfortunate attempt at humor," I said, convincing nobody.

"How long have I been here?"

"I don't know," I said to him. "We weren't summoned until the fourth? Fifth? It's hard to count back so far. Exdeath was one of the earliest, I know that much. And you were a Warrior of Light, in your own way. I'd imagine… you've been here for quite some time."

Cloud put his hand on Bartz's shoulder, as if to physically stop him from going further down this path. "This place messes with your head," he said in an attempt to dissuade him.

Bartz shook him off. "How many times?"

Cloud stared me down. Do something about this, he silently demanded.

I attempted to smile. "I'm remembering there was another warrior from your home on Chaos' side, something with a—I want to say the name began with a 'G'? Does that ring a bell?"

He drew in close to me, reached out for me as if to embrace me, but his hands stopped just a hair's breadth before he touched me. "How many times?" he asked again, desperate.

I couldn't look at Cloud.

"Last cycle, Zidane told me you were killed by Exdeath once," I said to him, gently. "There was one other time before that, when I was… Garland's. And one time that Zidane doesn't remember. You both died in the fourth cycle. The fifth cycle," I said. "As I said, it's difficult to keep it all straight…"

"The first cycle you two were summoned," he remembered. "You…killed us," he realized, his voice devoid of its typical robustness. He didn't push me away. He just looked into my eyes, searching for something that wasn't there.

Cloud pulled him back and towards the doorway. "We can talk about this later. Every second we waste here is a second Zidane could get into some serious trouble."

"You don't understand," I told Bartz. "I didn't—I didn't know who he was. I didn't know who I was. I only knew he'd destroyed me—"

"We're going to go find Zidane," Cloud insisted. He turned on me. "You can stay here or go, I couldn't care less. But if you're not here when we get back with him, then I guess that'll tell us everything we need to know."

I didn't know what I'd done to everything Zidane held dear. I didn't see the darkness of eternity beyond the light of the Crystal. I didn't know he'd stopped me so he could save me, because he held me dear, as well.

"I challenged Chaos when I realized what I'd done. I tried to end my own—"

Bartz disappeared through the doorway, but Cloud stopped when he heard my confession. Torn between the two of us, he eventually chose Bartz.

"Kind of surprised you didn't lie your way out of that one. Stay here, okay?" he told me, not unkindly. "Hold down the fort."

I hated him so much in that moment for making me remember him the way he was.

I couldn't stay here. I had to find Zidane before they did. I needed to tell him the truth, first. He needed to hear it from me, or else he would never believe me ever again. I needed him, as much as it infuriated me to recognize the truth.

I stopped myself just before I stepped through the doorway, and I cast my gaze over the _Prima Vista_. How could I have ever dreamt this airship would be my haven. Even for a fantasy, it was ridiculous.

Bitterness swept through me as my feet once more stepped onto the battlefield. _Zidane,_ I called out. _Where are you?_


	15. Chapter 15

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy IX and Dissidia are the property of Square Enix. The people who came together to make these characters and their worlds made their fans a home to which they will always return.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I shot across the landscape like a star. I had never Tranced like this. I must have caught the attention of every manikin in Chaos Territory, and half of Chaos' champions too. But I wasn't thinking about that. I wasn't thinking much, at all.

I was heading north with all the force Garland had placed in my blood, and there was no stopping me. The green beneath me turned to rock, and then fell away entirely. As I passed over the scorched earth of Chaos Territory, I gave my magic the reins. I didn't have a choice.

Maybe this wouldn't work out so badly. Maybe I would keep going until I collided head-on with Chaos. Maybe this was what it took to put things to an end, once and for all.

There was something in the sky in front of me. I could scarcely figure out who – or what – it was, that had placed itself directly in my path. There was no stopping.

A spark met a match, and _whoomph._ Fire. I fell. The last of my Trance shed from me like falling fireworks.

I caught a glimpse of green hair and a red cape before a gentle wind buoyed me and broke my fall. What was a gentle wind doing here?

Just as I doubted it, it faltered, as if I was the only thing keeping myself up in the air. I fell the last few feet onto a clutch of sharp volcanic rock. I yelped as a chunk of obsidian split my skin from temple to scalp.

Head wounds bled fast. I knew that. I pulled off my glove and pressed my bare palm to my forehead as someone fluttered around me. I shouldn't have argued when Kuja offered to teach me to focus up my healing magic.

"I'm so sorry," someone said. It was a girl. Terra. "This always happens. I try my best, but…"

She'd been the one to put herself in front of my path. She'd stopped me.

"Don't say that," I told her. "Without you, I'd have a lot more to deal with than just this scratch."

She shook her head. "You would say that. They warned me about you, you know. You can't keep your eyes off any girl."

"That is patently untrue. I am dedicated to not being able to keep my eyes off one girl in particular, I'll have you know," I told her. That reminded me. I needed to patch myself up. It was a lot easier to clear my head against the pain and concentrate after those lessons. I thought about the wind on the water, the white birds… Garnet's voice singing to them.

The wound closed most of the way. That was the best I could hope for. With blood still all over me, I laid back, gently, onto the rock and the strange lichen that grew amongst it.

"Keep your head elevated," Terra reminded me. I shifted so I was upright enough to stare at her. I couldn't imagine what I must have looked like to her. Torn apart by a hell of a Trance, and covered with quickly-drying blood.

"What are you doing here?" I asked her. "Why are you here in Chaos territory – by yourself?"

She sighed, and then stood up, before she realized there was nowhere for her to go. She hugged her arms to her chest. "I was separated from Onion Knight by the Cloud of Darkness. When I fell out of the fragment, I was here. You need to rest."

"Forget rest, we need to get out of here."

A strange look came over her. She turned out towards the horizon, already on the lookout. "I'll let you go as soon as I know you're well enough to fight. I won't leave you wounded and defenseless this deep in enemy territory."

"You're not coming with me? You have plans here or something?"

She smiled, a little. "Yes."

"Then I'll help you. Whatever it is."

"That's not a good idea. I've hurt you this much already. I can't guarantee I won't hurt you again. Besides… it's not something worth losing another warrior over."

"I don't know, it sounds a lot easier to take the Cloud of Darkness or Kefka off the board with two."

"That's right," she said. "You're one of the ones who remembers. I know what I was," Terra said then. I couldn't tell if she wanted to scream or to cry. "I know I didn't just wake up in our goddess' sanctuary with the rest of you. I know I was Kefka's slave. I know I served Chaos."

"So when you say you have something to do here in Chaos territory…"

"I need to know if I was handed over to Cosmos so I could destroy you all from the inside."

I didn't know what to tell her. I didn't know what happened to her, either. I could sure as hell remember the time the Emperor wanted to use Kuja to destroy Chaos from the inside for his own gain. It wasn't out of the question.

No, that wasn't true. I remembered something. It felt like forever ago, now, that Bartz had led me to the fragment of my crystal within Memoria. Garland had said something about Terra to Kuja, hadn't he? Kuja had freed her, with no motive at all. Apparently.

So Kuja had tried over and over again to set her free, until he'd succeeded. He must have hated seeing Terra like that, unable to act of her own free will. He wouldn't have cared if she had gone over to Cosmos or stuck with Chaos, as long as she was the one who made that choice.

But if there was one thing I could count on, it was that Kuja lied. He only thought about himself and he took a special pleasure in stabbing people in the back on the way. Except for when he didn't. I didn't know which was which.

That wasn't her fault, though. "So what if you were?"

She looked at me like I'd lost my mind. "What do you mean by that?"

"That's exactly what I mean. So what if that's how you got here. You don't want to hurt anyone, and nobody's controlling you, not anymore. As far as I'm concerned, you're one of us. Besides, no offense, but I bet Cosmos would be really disappointed in you if you got in trouble doing this, instead of looking for your crystal. You haven't… found your crystal, have you?"

She shook her head. "Have you?"

"Uh, no," I confessed. "I've been off doing something else. I know, I know what I just said. And look what happened to me. Don't be like me."

Then she sat down next to me. "Could you tell me how you came to be that way? Lost in your Trance."

It wasn't a good idea to tell her all the details. That was a good thing for me to tell myself, anyways. "I, uh… I was trying to get a handle on my magic, and long story short, I couldn't."

Somehow, that made her feel better. "So you're like me. I always thought it was the first thing everyone could tell about me, but I looked at you and I had no idea. You always hid it so well."

"Thanks, I think. And for the record, that wasn't the first thing I thought about you."

"No, it was the third thing. After you thought something indecent and then after you reminded yourself that during the last cycle, I was on the opposite side."

"Okay, I admit, I was a little glad to finally see a girl. Between Ultimecia and the Cloud of Darkness—"

I looked up with a start. The clouds above us were gathering into something with a little more intent than the usual roil. She scrambled to her feet and drew her sword. I was a little slower than her.

But the Cloud of Darkness was not here to fight. "Two stand on the precipice of the void," it said as it coalesced into its usual feminine form. "Both are weak and unsure. There's no shame in submitting together, or separate. It would be an act of bravery and honesty of which few here are capable."

"Yeah, I've had enough of voids and whatnot for one lifetime," I told her. "That, and I'm pretty sure you'd have to fight Necron for me. What's left of him, anyways."

We wouldn't have escaped without Kuja. This wasn't the time to think about that, I reminded myself.

The Cloud fixed its gaze on me. Its antennae snapped at me greedily. "You will fall before the girl," it said to me. "You are very close. And when you do, you will drag the others down with you."

"He's doing quite well, thank you," Terra said then. Magic crackled all around her like static electricity. "What have you done to Onion Knight?"

"Onion Knight is insecure, but otherwise uninteresting. The knight makes _you_ uninteresting. This one suits you better. But all in all, don't you find your alliance to Cosmos a little premature?" the Cloud asked. "It was not the light that freed you, but the dark. Stay with this one, and he'll bring you to your true form."

The Cloud turned away, and then dispersed.

"You were right. We have to go back," Terra said, fighting to keep her voice even. "I have to find Onion Knight. I have to get my crystal." She set off without waiting for me. I was glad she didn't just fly away.

"Whatever works," I muttered, and hurried after her.

We walked for an hour to the south, but we weren't going to get back to Cosmos territory without the use of a helpful fragment. If we were wrong, though, we could end up just a stone's throw away from Kefka, or worse.

I gave Terra some time to herself, to calm down. But even after the tightness in her shoulders fell, she didn't speak.

"You're not really much for conversation, are you?" I said. I meant it as a joke.

"Oh—I'm sorry, you weren't talking, so I thought you perhaps preferred not to speak, or that you were worried our voices would carry on this ill wind."

"No, I'm sorry, I—I didn't even think about that. I'm the one who got caught up thinking… I was being rude. It won't happen again."

We walked for another few minutes in almost painful silence.

"You said there was a girl?" she asked, quietly. "That means she's from your home, right?"

"Dagger was something else," I said. "Is something else, I meant."

Garnet remembered a melody; I remembered a light. That's all we had of the people who brought us into the world, for so long.

"Could you tell me what it's like? To really care about someone, I mean."

"There are some really great sonnets I've got memorized—"

"No," she said, "nothing like that. What's it like for you? Because I... I don't know. I don't even know if it's possible for me to feel something like that."

"I don't think that's true. You made sure I got out of my Trance because you cared about me, right? All this time here, you've spent here under Kefka's control. You're just getting started. What about your memories? What about home?"

"Home wasn't what I think you mean by home. Home was another place."

I believed I knew exactly what she meant by that. "Then in that case, not where you came from. The place where the people who were important to you were. I can't believe you were all alone your whole life."

"You remind me a little of Locke, you know. At first, I thought… well, I didn't think much of him, but he believed in me and… it's hard to do that without them. Without my allies," she added.

"Sometimes you just have to trust people." Sometimes. It seemed more important for her to hear that, than to hear the hundreds of caveats attached to it.

She nodded. "It happened to me too, you know. Once I was locked in a Trance so powerful that I lost control of myself. I ended up unable to help my allies. In fact, because of me, they had to split their forces in order to look for me.

"So when Locke and Celes went to the Magitek Facility – you know it, don't you? The fragment from my world. While I recovered, they went there to rescue the espers who were being drained for their magic by the Empire."

"And what are espers, like, eidolons?" I realized she wouldn't know what that meant. "These spirits summoners can communicate with—"

"They're my family," she said. "They'd gone there to rescue my people, though I didn't remember it at the time."

I wanted to hear more about the facility. If the facility drained magical power, then why would Sephiroth be putting manikins in there? Maybe that was how he drained them of their previous formations and remade them to work for him.

But Terra didn't know much more. "Just that the man who ran the research facility was a man named Cid," she said when I asked. "He warned Locke and Celes there was a rumor that Celes was in fact a spy, working for the Empire all along. It was something we'd always thought of every once in a while, but we thought surely, she couldn't be.

"When Kefka found them, he pretended that the rumors were true, and he even nearly convinced Locke that Celes was only with us to lure us right into the Empire's hands. And she… she disappeared. The next time we saw her was as an Imperial General once more. We were convinced she had been Kefka's ally the whole time… until she stabbed him. She'd been biding her time until the right moment…"

I exhaled. I felt my magic flare up in me and twist around my stomach. It was lucky I was tapped out from earlier.

Kefka wasn't above using the same trick twice. And I'd fallen for it, just like Locke had.

"Zidane, are you all right?"

Kuja had been telling the truth.

"Yeah," I said. "Yeah, I'm good. So what happened with Locke and the others back in the Magitek Facility? They escaped with the espers, right?"

"They did. And not just with any espers," Terra said. "They found my father." She was smiling, then. "It goes on from there, it doesn't stop… I'm sorry, I've gotten carried away."

"Don't be. It sounds like you have a place to go back to, and people to make it worthwhile." It was easier to talk to her about her future than to think for a second about mine.

"You're right," she said then. "Otherwise, why go back?"

"Why try to go back at all," I echoed. I had to get back. To Gaia, sure, but more immediately, back to the _Prima Vista_. I owed someone an apology.


End file.
